


A Castle in the Forest

by enkelimagnus



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (not graphic but it's in the opening of chap 1), Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Animal Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Daddy Issues, Demonic Possession, F/M, Fantasy Racism, Future Shaun Gilmore/Vax'ildan/Keyleth, Future Vax'ildan/Keyleth, Guns, Imagined Sororicide, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Modern Exandria, Murder, Mystery, Nightmare, Park Ranger Vex'ahlia, Past Saundor/Vex, Percival "Percy" de Rolo III & Keyleth Friendship, Tags to be added, past abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:14:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28386810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkelimagnus/pseuds/enkelimagnus
Summary: Vex'ahlia moves to the Alabaster Sierras National Park outpost to get away from her past and take over after the previous ranger's disappearance.She finds in Whitestone a companion, a friend and a town haunted by something she cannot quite figure out. It hangs around everyone she meets, secrets and lies and fear.As she works to care for the park, she discovers there's much more to save than a wild forest and a gorgeous mountainside.
Relationships: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vex'ahlia, Shaun Gilmore/Vax'ildan
Comments: 52
Kudos: 96





	1. Tranq Arrow

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Modern Vox Machina AU.  
> Things are quite different in this than they are in the canon, so be aware of that going in.  
> This was a total surprise for me, as I was not expecting to fall for Perc'ahlia as hard as I did, nor to start writing this. I have no idea where it is going. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this as much as I did writing it!
> 
> For information: they are all about level 6 in this first chapter. I sometimes roll for things while writing, outcomes of actions taken. Record of the rolls will be in the chapter end notes!
> 
> Big thanks to those who have helped with this, especially my WONDERFUL beta IndigoDream <3

On her first day at the Alabaster Sierras’ National Park, Vex’ahlia finds an injured cub.

She’s looking through the reserves that Regae, the last ranger, left behind when she hears whining and groaning, mournful and low, right outside of her new home. The cabin stands in a small clearing in the forest there, almost disappearing into the moss-covered stone of a stone spike. 

The noise is heart-breaking, but it doesn’t stop her from grabbing her bow and her quiver, taking one of her white-fletched tranquilizing arrows in hand before she steps out, notching it into the bow, ready to do her duty. She wishes she had more time, more preparation, and a better lay of the land than the one she got from studying her maps in the motel rooms she slept in while on the road. 

The door creaks as she opens it. There is a hard, ragged huff from an injured animal. She will need to grease the door hinges, she can’t have them making that much noise all the time.

Her sharp eyes catch the light reflecting on dark fur the second she looks out of the cabin. The animal is partially hidden behind some bushes, but it’s not moving a lot. It’s crying, looking around, seemingly hurt. As it turns, Vex catches a dark stain on the fur. Probably blood. 

She needs to shoot it, shoot well and right so she can take care of it. Hopefully, a Cure Wounds will be enough. 

Now that she’s away from the creaking door, her steps are much quieter. She moves forward with slow grace, her body used to the exercise of trying to get to an injured animal. She’s seen many, too many. People are violent and cruel to defenseless animals. She was hoping to have a couple days before she had to deal with one here…

She stops moving once she has a clear shot towards the tiny, maybe two months old bear cub. There is a crossbow bolt in its shoulder, and the poor creature is obviously in pain. There is no mother to be seen, and Vex’ahlia will need to scout the surrounding wounds for its corpse. She draws back the string and shoots.

She’s an excellent shot. The white arrow impacts, sticking into the fur of the cub, but not piercing the skin. At most, it’ll get a bruise from this. She sees the crackle of the magic effect around the white fletching and the whines and cries of distress slowly quiet. 

Once she’s sure the bear isn’t moving anymore, she stands from her crouched spot and walks towards it.

She was right, it’s barely a couple of months old, small and fuzzy and probably incredibly adorable when awake and alright. She reaches down to examine him. There’s the crossbow bolt she previously saw. It’s not too deep in, and she assesses a Cure Wounds and a couple of healing potions mixed with its food for a couple of days should be enough to get this taken care of. 

Her planned run to the nearest town, Whitestone, has just gotten much more urgent. The previous ranger left some things, but very few, and she definitely does not have enough to feed both her and the bear cub for the next couple of days.

Without much trouble, she picks up the animal, pulls it into her arms and walks back towards a small enclosed space next to the cabin, with an awning that allows for cover from the elements. It’s a rather standard feature of a lot of Ranger cabins, and she knows it’s where she can house the sleeping animal.

She sets him down there.

The inside of the cabin is still messy from her getting there and the healing kit hidden under the bed is outdated, so she grabs her own emergency kit from her backpack and goes back to the still sleeping animal. Now the hard part.

Vex takes her own arrow out of the fur first. The enchantment is still working on the cub, and taking it off won’t undo anything. She needs it out of the way to extract the crossbow bolt correctly. Her Cure Wounds is definitely not high enough to repair anything she messes up by being sloppy.

“Don’t worry, darling,” she whispers at the sleeping cub. She’s more talking to herself than to it at this point. 

She focuses. She does the best she can really, but it’s definitely not the best work she’s ever done. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, and casts Cure Wounds twice. She examines it more, but it seems her work was good enough to close the wound. She’ll have to keep an eye on it though. 

She sighs heavily and cleans up the fur and the area again, just in case. The sleep effect will last for a few hours more, enough that she probably has time to drive into town and then come back. And of course, before that, she needs to find the mother. She hopes it’s already dead, deep down.

She can’t leave the animal free though, even tranquilized. She needs to keep an eye on him. There’s probably some crates around, she thinks, trying to remember if she saw something useful there. She rummages through everything, finding a very chipped Alabaster Sierras National Park mug, some old instant coffee that rolled under the bed next to the healing kit and… 

A foldable dark blue crate, probably originally made for a small wolf or a fox but that will fit the cub perfectly. She puts some blankets and soft padding on the bottom of it and goes back outside, where the animal is still asleep and quiet. She gently puts it in, arranging the blanket so it’s comfortable. She tucks it under the table in the secluded care area.

She pulls her bow back to herself and gets ready for the worst part of her work. There are times when the only thing to do is to kill, and she cannot stand it, but she’s used so much of her strength on the cub that she fears she won’t be able to heal the mother, if it is even doable.

She notches another tranquilizing arrow, and starts walking.

Tracking the path of the injured cub isn’t hard. He was awkward and heavy, putting blood on leaves and shoving his way through the vegetation, leaving marks of his passage behind him. It’s a little heart-breaking. 

It takes her a few minutes of walking, her bow ready to shoot before she sees it. The body of the mother. 

There’s blood everywhere over the fur, crossbow bolts sticking out of the body. Vex stops and pauses. She watches and listens for anything, for a breath, for a groan, for anything.

Nothing.

The silence is deafening and the bear is dead. There’s no saving this one. A part of her wants to kill those who did that, and she’ll keep an eye on people with crossbows. She has one of the bolts back at the cabin, and she’ll commit it to memory, make sure she can recognize the killers. 

She exhales. Mechanically, she tucks the arrow back into her quiver and starts walking home.

The cub, now officially orphaned, is still asleep in the small crate when she comes back. She’ll need supplies to care for him, he doesn’t look old enough for solid food. She’ll need so many things. Her grocery list lengthens in her mind as she tours the cabin to see what she already has. 

She manages to haul the crate onto the passenger seat of her pick-up truck, tethering it securely with some extra belts she added there a long time ago for this exact purpose.

She has bags, her purse and everything she needs already in the truck, so she closes the door and hops into the driver seat of the truck. 

It’s seen things, that truck, she’d gotten it second-hand and worn-in a few years ago when she started out. It’s hers now, with its bumper stickers and its muddy tire guards. She had it repainted in a dark blue-green color, more fitting for the forest.

Vex leaves her newfound home, setting the GPS on her phone. She doesn’t know the tracks of roads well yet, and the Rangers have a special app that tracks forest tracks and little mud paths as well as highways. It has saved her ass quite a number of times.

She sets the destination for Whitestone and gets going. With every bump of the road as her truck bounces around, she checks on the sleeping cub, hoping it won’t wake up. She’s taken her quiver and bow with her of course, and she still has some tranquilizing arrows, but she doesn’t want to use them right now, she’ll need them later.

The Alabaster Sierras are a wild sort of place, with legends upon legends baked into its name. So much that any sort of documentation you can find on both the park and the area is littered with myths. It’s enough to discourage many people, especially when Regae, the last person to man the outpost, died there under mysterious circumstances. No one volunteered to take their place. So Vex did.

She had been desperate to get away from Shademurk Forest, anyway. If she was already leaving, she might as well hide away in one of the Northernmost parts of the continent, the spike of land that bit into the Shearing channel. The inhabitants of Whitestone have a rather misanthropic reputation, which is absolutely to her liking. The fewer nosy assholes wandering the forest paths, the better.

It’s not that she dislikes hikers. She just really dislikes the mess they leave behind. Broken branches and trash and sometimes injured animals. People could be cruel in how they interact with nature and it lights an anger in her heart. Vax says it’s her projecting her own issues onto the parks, and he says it in that voice he uses when he gets serious, when his cutting remarks are softened by his concern. She hates agreeing with that voice.

She’s so far away from him, once again, and she kind of hates it. No, she absolutely hates it. He’s her twin, her other half, and she hates knowing he’s probably still hanging around in Syngorn committing burglary on their father’s shitty friends. Maybe she should call him and ask him to come and stay here. 

She shakes away the thought. The cabin is too small, and there’s no reason for him to come here. He’s relatively happy working in Syngorn with his gang of misfits, she doesn’t need to pull him away from his life. She already made that mistake once in Shademurk Forest, and she’s not going to do it again.

It takes her about thirty minutes to drive carefully down to Whitestone. 

The treeline stops abruptly as Vex drives out of the forest into farmlands. Her eyes trace the vegetation to check for the telltale signs of abuse but enough of it bleeds into the fields to show a healthy respect for the wild. The area is protected though, so as long as those lines are not changed without permission, she doesn’t have to worry about excessive deforestation.

That’s the thing with parks. They’re protected. It allows for her to worry less about some aspects of the small city’s presence there.

She drives onto a road made of something that isn’t dirt and stops thinking as much about the animal by her side. There’s a light jam at the Western Gate of the city, but nothing that irritates her more than normal. 

She parks in a big, mostly empty, lot and leaves her windows cracked open for the cub still inside. 

The town has wooden buildings, most of them one-level. She seems to be not far from the center square where an enormous tree stands; she can see it bows over the rooftops of the buildings. The roads are a little quiet and empty, with occasional trucks passing-by similar to hers.

Vex grabs supplies for twelve gold at the general store and one gold’s worth of ammo at the weaponry. People don’t seem to pay much attention to her. It makes sense, she’s new in town and they’re used to hikers and people on holiday; a new face isn’t ground-breaking. 

The cub is still sleeping like an angel when she finishes loading most of the supplies in the truck. She still has one more stop however.

Late afternoon sunlight is bathing the streets in orange when Vex pushes open the door of the Alcove. It’s a plain little building made of dark wood, with an old metallic sign jingling about over the door. As she walks in, a bell rings, shoved by the door. 

The inside is small, a little cramped, with a little too much dust. It’s less well-kept than the ones she’s frequented in Syngorn or that one she’s visited on the way here when she’d driven through Westrunn. She knows better than to judge however. As long as she can haggle down some prices, she’s all good with whatever the shop looks like.

She’s not the only client here. In front of the register is a tall half-elven person with long red hair and skin that is quite well-tanned. There’s a circlet around their forehead, with antlers sprouting from it and vines wrapped around the headband. They’ve got a worn backpack on their shoulders, and they’re talking animatedly with the person on the other side of the counter.

“-made this one last month and he tried to improve on his previous design. He’s expecting a little more from that one though, if you don’t mind?” The redhead asks, looking absolutely sweet and unsure. 

Vex positions herself in parallel to the redhead, eyes on an ornate piece of clockwork. She isn't trying to figure out what it is, she’s only looking at it so she doesn’t stare at the two others while she listens in on their conversation.

The store employee sighs a little. There’s a light noise of metal scraping against wood. 

“I’ll see what I can do, Keyleth, but times are hard right now. He’ll understand, I think,” they say. Their voice is heavy and wary. 

“I… I’ll explain,” the redhead - Keyleth - replies. “But… he’s trying to keep Cass afloat too, and it’s getting hard. They’re still not giving her the money.” 

Maybe she shouldn’t be listening to this conversation. That Keyleth person seems genuinely sad and Vex starts feeling a little bad for them, and whoever they’re talking about. It sounds like legal trouble as well as financial, and Gods she really is being a nosy asshole, isn’t she? 

She turns her attention back on the clockwork on the shelf. It’s a miniature clock that ticks slowly with passing of time. It’s pretty, delicate, with little etched markings in the metal for the minutes. She reaches out for it.

“Please, don’t!” The shopkeeper calls out right as she’s about to touch it and she turns towards them.

The one called Keyleth is looking at her with wide green eyes. There’s a smattering of freckles over their face. 

“Is it fragile?” Vex asks curiously. 

“It’s a weapon,” Keyleth replies, cutting off the shopkeeper. “You shouldn’t touch it without knowing what it does. Creator’s request.” 

Vex raises an eyebrow and takes a couple of steps towards the register. “Are you the creator?” 

The wooden top of the desk has two more of the clockwork machines on them, one that looks like a watch and another like a wind-up toy. 

Keyleth laughs, a bright but kinda snorty sort of laugh that is immediately endearing. “Oh, no! I’m way too clumsy to make stuff like this!” They smile. “I’m a friend of the creator.” 

“He makes them and then sends her to sell them to me at high price,” the shopkeeper grumbles, but they don’t seem to be mad at the redhead or her creator friend. 

Vex eyes the redhead a little closer. Her ears are pointier than a human but not as elongated as an elf. She’s a fellow  _ othlir _ , and she’s wearing sturdy hiking shoes under her flowy green-colored ensemble.

“I’m Keyleth of the Air Ashari,” she holds out her hand, not knowing Vex has been listening in. “Nice to meet you.” 

Vex shakes the offered hand. “Vex’ahlia. I’m the new ranger for the Alabaster Sierras park. There to keep a good eye on the hikers and the area.” Her tone is firm. If Keyleth is smart, she’ll get that Vex won’t allow anything to slide. Maybe Regae did, or maybe he didn’t. Either way, Vex means business.

“Oh, that’s cool,” Keyleth grins. “Should I hope to see you around when I’m out there?” 

Vex winces. “Probably not. I tend to appear when people fuck up.” 

“Well, she’s a druid, so you shouldn’t worry much about her disrespecting nature,” the shopkeeper chuckles. “I’m Simon Whisk, by the way. Owner of the Alcove.” 

Keyleth points at the staff resting against the register which appears to be both a walking stick and a druidic focus. Vex relaxes a little. 

“Well I’m glad, that’s one less person I have to worry about,” she chuckles. “Nice to meet you, Mr Whisk.” 

They seem to be nice people, even if Vex has many questions about the creator, about the weapons. Whitestone just got marginally more interesting. 

“Can I help you in any way, Vex’ahlia?” Whisk asks after a moment of quite awkward silence. 

Vex nods, smiling a little. “Oh, yes, yes. Do you have any tranquilizing arrows or blow gun needles?”

“Let me check,” the shopkeeper turns around and pushes through the curtain that leads to the backroom, leaving Vex alone with Keyleth.

The redhead is moving a little, shifting from one foot to the other, seemingly trying to find something to say. Her boots have a little bit of dried mud on them, the end of her staff as well. She seems like she just came back from a hike. Vex decides to put her out of her lack of conversation-induced misery.

“What trail were you on?” She asks, motioning towards the backpack.

“Oh,” Keyleth smiles. “The one on the west side of the castle? It snakes around the bottom of the platform the castle is on.” 

That’s not a trail. At least not one that’s on Vex’ map. She takes note of that, of the fact she’s going to have to work the trail, make it safe and write it into the maps and softwares of the area.

“Do you take it often?” 

Keyleth shrugs. “Every time I’m in town. That’s about… once a month?”

So it’s her favorite too. “How many people do you see there usually? Is it well used?” 

“Oh, not really,” the woman shrugs again. “It’s pretty forgotten, I think. Only me and a couple of friends know it.” 

That’s good news, as far as Vex is concerned. It makes working it less urgent. She still puts it on her to-do list for the next few days. She needs a good lay of the land if she wants to do her job correctly. She’s already understaffed enough for the size of the park. 

“Thanks for letting me know,” Vex smiles professionally, her mind already working. She really needs to go. The druid is sweet but she needs to check on the cub again, and then she really wants to call Vax. 

Simon Whisk comes back at about that moment with a small box of what seems to be blowgun needles. 

“No arrows, but there’s these. They’re one gold, for ten of them,” he points out. Vex pays in coin and thanks both of them.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” she nods. “I’ll be around for more purchases later.” 

“Pleasure,” the man nods. 

Keyleth waves lightly with her right hand and Vex walks away.

She shoves open the door, her purchases under her arms. The sun has almost disappeared behind the buildings and she needs to drive home fast. She doesn’t really want to try through unknown forest paths in the middle of the night, even if she has darkvision. 

Vex straps the boxes and crates she got in the back of her pick-up truck so they won’t fly off while she drives. She puts her bow down in between the passenger seat and the dash, and looks down into the plastic crate.

The cub is asleep still, knocked out. He’s curled up on himself, fluffy brown fur rising and falling with the rhythm of his breathing. Eyes closed and little claws tucked into the blanket. Vex melts. 

Poor baby, all alone in this world now. She’s going to need to be his mother for a while and she wishes she didn’t have to. She’ll do the absolute best she can though. He deserves that, if anything. 

Vex slides into the driver seat and starts the drive back to the cabin, back home. No. She’s not there yet, not ready to call it home. It’ll come though, it always does. She needs a moment, and a phone call with her brother.

She sets the GPS to the fastest route and it guides her out of the Eastern gate this time, driving in between the city and the cemetery. Right as she engages herself into the surrounding motorway, traffic slows down into a jam. Vex huffs, putting on the heating. She doesn’t turn on the radio, despite how she wants some noise to fill the silence. She doesn’t want to wake the cub up until she’s ready to care for him.

Her eyes slide over the cars in front of her, a lot of trucks and a couple of slicker cars, probably from the richest inhabitants of the city. Her teenage home of Syngorn was filled with these and only these, dark and smoked-out, driving around assholes who pretended to be better than everyone else.

She looks away from the cars that bring back memories. Two structures tower at the Southern and Northern sides of the cemetery and she’s currently stuck by the southern one to go back to the cabin. 

It’s a tall stone edifice with stained glass windows. It’s a rather common feature of temples of Pelor; these ones were ten feet tall and the usual design of the sun was half-hidden behind a gigantic beautiful tree. In front of beautifully-carved double doors stand two figures. Vex probably shouldn’t stare at them; she does it anyway.

The one standing in the arched opening of the doors is tall, with salt and pepper hair. From afar, Vex can’t exactly make out the features of their face. They’re wearing a cream, gold and red robe with a gold sash around the waist. She assumes they’re a priest of this temple.

The other one is shorter, slighter and wearing much darker clothes; a dark blue woolen coat and dark brown thigh-high boots are as much as Vex can make out from her car. Their hair is brown, but streaked in an interesting way with white: a few strands at the temples.

The two of them seem deep in conversation, the blue-wearing one clutching at their coat. Just as Vex tries to focus to see their lips and try to read their conversation, a loud honking noise makes her almost jump out of her seat.

The cars in front of her have moved and her lack of following irritates those stuck behind. 

Vex rolls her eyes and gets back to driving home. As she makes her way from motorway to road to mud, mist falls over the forest, slipping through the trees and making it a little harder to get to the cabin safely. It blurs the lines of the trunks. A shiver runs down her spine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vex’s shooting the cub: 23 to hit  
> Vex’s Cure Wounds: 13 points of healing  
> Rolling a 20 for the mother: 2  
> Rolling a 20 for encounters in the town: 15


	2. Phone Call

Five days after learning about the unmapped trail, Vex decides to work it.

Her pack is heavy with the paint used to mark trails, as well as with the wood markers she’ll hammer into the ground on the sides of the path, every couple hundred feet. She’s quite happy to do this, if she’s honest with herself. She hasn’t marked a trail in years. 

She leaves the cabin early in the morning. The issue with unmapped trails is that no one knows how long they are. Given how some weekend hikers sometimes can barely understand how length correlates to time, she doesn’t want to have people lost in the woods without enough water or food and no way to know how far they are from the edge of civilization.

But it also means that she doesn’t know how long she’ll be out, and she doesn’t want it to last longer than strictly necessary. 

She drives out to the edge of the forest, sharp eyes looking for the end of the trail, where it meets with the fields. She finds it somewhere around the Northern gate of the city. She’d actually driven by it when she’d gone back from Whitestone for her supply run, but the cover of night and shadow had kept her from seeing it.

It’s small, the tops of the trees parting a little more than six feet above the ground, and narrow, about the width of her body. The sides of her backpack brush against the leaves and branches of the surrounding vegetation; it must see very few people, or only some walking in a single file.

Vex thinks back to the red-haired half-elf in the shop who had pointed her to this trail. She would fit in the narrow path well enough. It looks like maybe Keyleth has been the only one on that trail after all. 

Vex takes out her shears and starts slightly widening the gap, so people won’t get tangled in branches easily. It’s harrowing work, slow and long, but necessary.

She must widen the gap enough, set some markers that will show up on the ranger apps and will be used to calculate the distance from the beginning of the trail to the end. It’s a lot of cutting, snapping and hammering in the wooden markers with a heavy mace.

It’s a relatively warm day for the season, and Vex is quick to break a sweat. By ten in the morning, she’s taken off her heavy coat, and she’s only about two-hundred feet from the entrance. Thank the Gods for her gloves, or her palms would be slippery; that’s very dangerous when wielding a mace and sharp shears.

She stops around noon and quickly drives back to her cabin to check on the cub. He has a little park now, so he can run around a little and be a cub while she works. He’s adorable. She’s starting to get used to having the cub by her side, a companion to her new life. It makes the loneliness much more bearable.

She’s so used to having someone there. Vax usually, for most of her life at least. And when she was in Shademurk… There was Saundor. His name comes into Vex’s mind and she shoves it away and smiles at the cub. Then she goes back to work. 

She manages a couple of hundred feet more during that day. She gives up as the sun starts disappearing behind the mountain and painting the trees in fire. She packs up and when she arrives at the cabin, it’s half-swallowed by the mist that comes with the night.

She feeds the cub, tidies around and makes dinner. It’s a hearty stew with loads of root vegetables and hints of the spices she brought from Syngorn. Winter is coming and greens are a little rarer. She’ll need to ask Vax to send her more spices. 

While the dinner simmers, Vex takes some time in the bathroom, cleaning off the grime and sweat of the day and rinsing her hair. She sits down and brushes it out completely; her long dark locks reach the small of her back when they’re weighed down by the water and brushed out. She styles it back into her usual braid and goes back to the main room, now almost plunged in darkness.

Vex lights the lantern again with a new match so she can be sure it doesn’t go out and puts it down on the wooden table of the cabin. It’s small, big enough for maybe two comfortably, and she sits there, with the cub, just fed, in the crate at the foot of her bed. 

Everything is narrow. The cabin has a room, a bathroom, a tall ladder that comes out of the roof and snakes onto the stone of the pike its resting against, that leads up to the outlook post, giving a breathtaking view onto the treetops.

She eats some of her stew with a small cheese and cured beef sandwich, cuts up a fruit and gives a little of it to the cub. He’s having a little trouble with it, but it’s soft and perfect and he looks delighted with the taste.

Eventually she snuffs out the lantern and slides into the narrow bed in the corner of the room. It’s bigger than a twin and smaller than a full size. It could fit two people, but only if they slept right against each other. 

The pillow smells of the soap she used to wash it when she arrived. It’s Syngornian, made with olive oil. It’s perfect; it smells of every bed she’s had since she moved to Syngorn when she was ten. 

She falls asleep for a few hours, wakes up to feed the cub in the middle of the night and goes back to sleep.

That becomes her rhythm for the following days. The trail is longer than anticipated, and she has other duties than marking it up. She needs to keep the rest of the immensity of the Alabaster Sierras park in check. She needs to spend time on the look-out post, check the other trails for any damage, look for tire tracks and occasionally check on hikers.

It’s a thankless job most days, and she’s exhausted most nights. She doesn’t have a lot of time to think about Keyleth and the clockwork machines, about the unmarked trail and where it could lead. She calls Vax some days, and then sleeps. 

The cub is getting better by the day. He’s a lively little thing and Vex absolutely adores him. Eventually, on the days when she works the trail, she takes the little park with her so the cub can play in it next to where she works.

It’s comfortable, it’s lovely, even. The winter is coming, days growing shorter and shorter and she oftens finishes her days with her frontal light on, but it feels right. Alone in the wilderness, chopping down wood for her fireplace and taking care of the cub, she feels safe. 

Safety is rare in this world, she knows that. She’s learned that. And even without Vax, her safety and the other part of herself, she feels safe right now. 

Maybe it’s the distance, or the stolen bow hidden under the bed that she still doesn’t dare to touch, in fear that touching it would make her trackable by its owner. Maybe she’s just different now, and the quietness around her makes her feel much more at home. Lack of noise is good, especially when noise can mean such horrible things.

A lot of her has changed since Shademurk. She left a whole version of Vex’ahlia back in that godforsaken swamp. The version that couldn’t stand to be lonely. The version that threw herself into the arms of the first to provide noise to fill the silence. She’s not the one that let Saundor declare himself a permanent companion, barely a month after she’d arrived in Shademurk, not anymore. 

She still dislikes being lonely, but she’s tasted what being too desperate to change it can lead to. And she has absolutely no desire to fall into that trap again. She only got out of the first one because Vax came in, threw a dagger into the guy’s chest and they escaped. Shame knots in her stomach at the thought.

Vex runs out of food for the cub around two weeks after her first trip into Whitestone. He’s eating much more than she expected him to. It’s the first time she’s the only one caring for a bear, the first time since she’s started actual active ranger duty. She’s done a few training sessions before, but this is much more than expected.

So she puts him back in the crate, puts the crate back in the truck and goes back down the path to the city. 

It’s colder and lighter that day, the kind of heady white weather that makes your breath cloud in the air and that promises snow. Vex hasn’t really lived through snow. She’s incredibly excited about it. 

The low wooden buildings are still foreign to her. As she drives through older parts of the city, they become a little less square and low, and start looking like overturned ships. It’s peculiar. She’ll have to look into the history of the city a little more.

She parks in the same spot as the last time and goes through the same general supply store. She manages to haggle down the price of a month of food for her and the cub, and comes out feeling more victorious than she has in a while. 

She charges the supplies into the truck and pauses. She should be going back to the cabin now. She doesn’t really have anything more to do in town. The metal sign of The Alcove catches her eye from the other side of the parking lot. It can’t hurt to check for healing potions, right?

She’s about to walk into the shop when she sees something. She’s noticed it before of course, it’s hard not to; but at this time of the morning, the winter sun reflects off the white stone of the castle beautifully. It looks struck by the blessing of the Dawnfather himself. She guesses that explains the temple she saw the other day. When you see such beauty, it’s hard not to worship it. 

The little chime jingles as she pushes the door open. The Alcove is as cramped and strange as she remembers it. This time however, she’s alone in it. 

Instead of going to the shelf of clockwork, Vex goes to the shelf of various vials. They’re all labelled in a neat script but every vial is a little different. The enchanter has been using containers from their everyday life it seems. She’s pretty sure the fire-breath potion comes in what once was a jar of pickles. 

Someone coughs in the back of the shop. Vex turns around right as Simon Whisk comes through the beaded curtain.

“Hello!” The man calls out with a smile. “You’re that new ranger, right? I remember you.” 

Vex smiles curtly. “You have a good memory.” 

“It’s not often we see new faces in winter. Most of the tourists come when summer’s around,” he shrugs. “What can I do for you?” 

Vex takes a step away from the shelf and towards the register. “What’s the price on your healing potions?” 

“The regular one’s fifty gold.” 

Ouch. That’s a lot. She definitely doesn’t need to buy a new one right now, she still has a couple. 

“And I’m guessing there’s no friend’s discount on these?” She asks, sending him a charming smile. 

He seems to hesitate for a moment, looking between her and the potion. Vex smiles again, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. She slinks forward, leaning against the register, almost batting her eyelashes. It’s her usual little performance to get what she wants, and it’s having the desired effect. 

Except this is not a usual situation. She shouldn’t be doing this, especially for something she doesn’t need and doesn’t particularly want. She shoves herself back, shaking her head. 

“We’ll have time to become friends later,” she shakes her head. “Thank you for letting me know though.” 

Whisk frowns a little. “Of course,” he nods. “Anything else I can help you with?” 

Vex thinks a little, and goes back to her earlier fascination. “You mentioned tourists. Do they visit the castle?” 

The man immediately changes demeanour, a perceptible shift. He tenses, closing off, and seems much more serious than before. The castle seems to be a sore subject. 

“They don’t. It’s been deserted for years,” he replied. “All there is to see is ruin and old stone. The entrance was barred years ago.” 

Vex raises an eyebrow. That’s definitely unusual. “What happened? Local sovereign was a dick and was deposed?” It wouldn’t be the first city where that happened. Nobles could very easily become tyrants. 

“No,” Whisk replies. “The De Rolos were loved,” he shifts again and looks at her. “Do you need anything else?” 

That’s a clear ‘please shut up and leave me be’ if Vex has ever seen one. She shakes her head, letting it go. For now, at least. She’ll find people that are more willing to answer her questions later. 

“No, thank you. You’ve been incredibly helpful.” 

The man nods. “Goodbye.” Without leaving her a second to answer, he turns around and walks back through the beaded curtain. 

Vex swallows. Well, that’s definitely what making friends is like. She walks back out, the chime jingling loudly in her ear, and in the silence of the shop. She grabs a coffee on the way back to her truck and drinks it quietly, before getting back on the road.

It’s too early in the day for there to be a traffic jam. She gets home, cares for the bear, works, and tries to not let her mind wander towards the castle again. She has better things to do right now. 

Eventually, she stops working and running around.

She lets herself think about it again once she’s sitting at her dinner table. The fire is roaring in the fireplace. It’s already freezing, and it’s only the early evening. The stew is warm and comforting, even if she lacks the spices’ usual bite. She’s trying to save her stash. About two weeks in and she’s already made quite a dent. 

This whole story is strange. She remembers some about the De Rolos, from her classes in Syngorn when she was a teenager and still being groomed to make her father proud. They’d been the founders of Whitestone, and the rulers of the area for about two centuries. Two centuries was little to Elves but it meant a lot to humans. They indeed seemed to have been loved by their people, and to have been growing stronger with their trading ties to the rest of Tal’Dorei. Though they had little exports, the timber of the Alabaster Sierras forest was the most important one. 

They’d worked hand in hand with the Tal’Dorei Wilderness Conservation organisation to both build the park and preserve nature and the ecosystem of the Alabaster Sierras and provide sufficient forest areas for exploitation and export. It had been a remarkable accord between the TWC and a government, the kind that Vex’ ranger mentors had mentioned many times.

Why didn’t they mention that they were all dead? 

Her shoulders feel a little heavy suddenly, the day’s work of marking the trail and talking to some asshole hikers about park safety weighing her down. The thought of these good rulers being all dead isn’t exactly cheerful either. She digs her elbows into the table. She misses home suddenly, home where she doesn’t have to worry about her spices stash lowering or weird massacres.

She hasn’t actually lived in Syngorn properly for a couple of years now, but that’s still what she thinks of when she thinks of home. It’s the tall delicate building backed against the tall wooden tower her father calls his favorite creation. It’s the big bed with the deep green velvet canopy, the chirping birds that almost sound like they’re talking. It’s the greens and fruits and oils and vinegars made of every plant and fruit available. It’s Vax.

Her phone rings. She checks for the caller ID, and it’s Vax. Of course it’s Vax. 

“Hey, Stubby. How’s it going” 

Vex exhales. Gods, she misses him. Hearing his voice is like drinking water after a long day in the sun. She’s talked to him two days ago, but it never feels like enough.

“Pretty desolate,” she shrugs.

“Must be hard,” Vax points out. “You hate desolate.” 

“Not anymore,” she replies, and she swallows a little at all the implications of that, as all of what Vax knows, and all that he doesn’t know. “Would you mind sending me some mango vinegar? And some more of the everyday spices? I’m running low.” 

Vax huffs. “And what else is on your grocery list?”

She can almost see him, long dark hair held back with a leather tie, sprawled on the big chairs in the reading room of the building they grew up in, going through the loot of the day’s burglaries and deciding what to keep and what to give away. Vax loves his trinkets more than he likes money, and she’s the exact opposite. Coins are better than a vase that threatens to break. Gold will never betray you.

“Up here they eat a lot of potatoes. You know I can’t handle that without my favorite seasonings,” Vex shrugs.

There’s a silence over the phone for a moment. When he speaks again, he has the voice she hates. 

“Promise me I won’t find you shacked up with an asshole again, and I’ll get everything you want from Syngorn to you within a week.” 

Vex almost hangs up the call at that. She knows he’s worried, and for very good reasons, but she can’t stand this. She’s not going to make that mistake again, and he doesn’t need to make her promise it. The hurt and anger swells up again inside of her as she thinks back to the look in his eyes when he’d seen how small she made herself around Saundor. She hates that look, Gods. 

“I promise,” she whispers anyway. “Don’t worry.” 

“It’s my job to worry,” Vax replies.  _ Because no one else will worry for you if I don’t _ . He doesn’t say it though. He doesn’t need to.

“I wish you were here,” she admits after a beat. She told herself she wouldn’t ask him to come, but… now that she’s on the phone with him.. If he offers, she won't say no. She can’t say no. “But you’d hate it here. It’s not good for thieving.” 

Vax laughs. “It might be good for giving, however? Maybe they need a little Syngorn-loving too. I can arrange that.”

“There’s an empty castle. There might still be things, if it hasn’t been looted already,” Vex continues. She pretends she isn’t trying to get him to come. “You could stop in Westrunn… See Gil.” 

“I’m a good brother, so I won’t tell him you called him that, or he’ll murder you.” 

Vex chuckles. “He can always try.” 

Gilmore’s nice. He’s good for Vax, good at helping him canalize his more… disastrous tendencies. Vex isn’t there for him, and she’s glad he has someone to rely on. Especially someone so charming. 

“Okay then, Vex,” her brother says, and she knows by his tone that he means it. “It sounds like a good enough vacation. I’ll come. And don’t call me in three days to tell me it’s a bad idea.” 

It wouldn’t be a vacation for her, but it would make the work easier. And he would even maybe pick up a pair of shears and help her out with the trail. He’s always liked following her into discoveries, after all. 

“Love you, brother. I’ll see you in a few days?” 

“Yeah, I’ll let you know. Love you Stubby.” And with that, he hangs up.

It’s been too short a conversation to really satisfy her, but Vex is getting tired. She’s had an exhausting day, after all, and she deserves a good night of rest. She gathers all her things, turns on the radio on the way to the sink. The sound sputters a little and she inches the antenna away from the wall and the stone, towards the open valley. Some band starts playing. It’s… Doctor Dranzel’s band? Something like that.

The lantern is slowly dimming. The warmth of the fire is seeping into her bones. Her hair is mostly dry. Vex does the dishes methodically, letting her mind melt away at the repetitive motions. Her nail scrapes at a piece of food the sponge won’t dislodge from the metal plate. 

A wolf howls in the forest. Vex smiles. She breathes out. It’s been a very long time since she’s been afraid of the forests at night.

She falls asleep with a roaring fire in the fireplace, large logs promising to keep her warm all night long. Castle Whitestone looms over her dreams like a threat. Or perhaps, like a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7 History check on Whitestone22 Persuasion check on Simon Whisk  
> Insight check on Simon Whisk, 25 (Natural 20)  
> 20 History check on trying to remember the de Rolos


	3. Broken Wall

Keyleth was right about the trail. She’s the only one that really takes it. 

It’s a month into Vex’s stay in Whitestone when she bumps into the red-haired half-elf again.

It’s a late morning with a pale winter sun, the kind that doesn’t really warm you in any way. Vex hasn’t had to take off her coat through the exertion of work in a couple of days. The cub plays in a pen she’s hammered into the side of the path when she got there. 

She’s a couple of miles into the trail now and it’s getting harder by the day. The further away from civilisation, the more tangled the branches and roots are. She doesn’t easily fall to the ground but even her sure footing fails her regularly. 

The trail now snakes along the mountainous platform Castle Whitestone sits on. A thin layer of bushes provides a buffer between the path and the rock, thicker in patches where certain harsher varieties grow. There’s some berry bushes in there, thorny but with delicious fruit that will make Vex’ delight in summer. 

She decides to stop for a bit of lunch, gives the cub some milk and solid food. She’s trying to wean him off, regularly asking advice to her old mentors. Once she’s done taking care of him, she sits down on a bigger rock and starts to eat her sandwich of brown bread, cured meats and cheese, with dried fruit on the side. She’s completely out of spices and Vax won’t be there for a week at least. 

It’s all a little drab. Despite the pale sun, she can feel the rain coming, and she doubts she’ll be able to spend most of the afternoon working here. She’ll have to pack up and start the hike back down to the edge of the path, for almost two hours. 

She stretches out once she’s done eating, closing her eyes and letting herself dig. She settles her feet into the ground, straightens her spine and digs herself into the forest. 

Her consciousness expands, past her skull, through her entire body until she’s one with her mind. And then it pushes past her physical form. Through every pore, through her feet’s connection to the ground, she breathes her mind out and lets it tangle with the forest. 

It’s a strange sort of feeling. Vex stops breathing for a second as she sinks into the sensation of letting her mind run free. It’s primal. She remembers being taught this strange instinctive ability by other rangers, being taught to let herself be. Let her nature breathe out.

She stops floating after a moment though and focuses on what she’s doing this for. She’s searching for an enemy.

More specifically, she’s searching for a fey. A part of her doesn’t believe she’s truly alone and free of Saundor’s influence, so she searches. She doesn’t find any fey, nothing in the six mile radius her consciousness stretches in. What she finds however is a fiend.

She can’t tell exactly where it is, her powers aren’t that specific, but she knows it’s there. It’s in her radius, in her home, in the place she’s sworn to protect. 

The trance ends and she snaps back into her body like a stretched-out rubber hand. She shudders violently, her eyes adjusting to her surroundings. She’s forgotten her own name for a second there. 

The fiend’s presence leaves an ashy aftertaste in her mouth. She’ll need to go and talk to a priest about this. She has no idea what the creature’s power is, but she’d rather have some divine magic by her side if she has to root it out. 

As she packs her things to get back to work, she hears something. A light footstep, to her right, coming from the south.

Vex’s hand flies to her bow. Lightning-fast, she notches in an arrow and draws it back, focusing on her target.

A half-elf with red hair, tan skin and green eyes. Her hands are up, she has a sheepish smile on her face. Keyleth.

Vex exhales. She doesn’t lower her guard, because Keyleth could still be the fiend, but she relaxes somewhat.

“You startled me,” she says in explanation, but not apology, for the arrow pointed at her.

“I’m sorry,” Keyleth replies, her hands still up even if Vex has lowered her bow. “I wasn’t expecting someone there either.” 

Her eyes dart over to the rock formation for a second. 

“I’m making sure this trail is secure,” Vex explains. “You can probably handle yourself, but unmarked paths like this one are just begging for idiots to climb up and get themselves injured. And then I have to deal with it,” she mutters. “And it’s a major liability.” 

“I get it,” Keyleth hums. Her right hand settles on the rock.

She seems anxious despite her relaxed demeanor. It may simply be a façade. Her eyes dart to the stone right behind Vex, or up to the castle regularly, as if checking if something is still there. She’s much more nervous, almost hostile towards Vex than the first time they met. Something’s wrong.

“I was wondering,” Vex starts again, and green eyes snap back to her. “I did some… energy checks around here earlier and something was wrong. I felt a-”

“There are many wrong things in the Parchwood Timberlands,” Keyleth snaps, cutting Vex off. “Undead sometimes, some elementals too. Comes with the territory. A lot of magical energy here.” 

She’s trying to distract Vex’ attention. She’s lying to her, it’s almost too obvious. The red-head is not good at deception and it immediately pings Vex’ radar. Her eyes are darting back to the stone almost in panic now, her arm not holding her staff is stiff to her side with the fist closed. 

“I’m not talking about those,” Vex coldly points out. “I felt a fiend. A couple undead or werewolves or elementals I can deal with, and was warned about when I took my post. But not fiends.”

Keyleth is stiff as a board now. “I… I don’t know. I don’t come here often, and I only come on this trail. I can’t help you,” she mumbles under her breath. 

She’s still lying. Vex feels the rise of anger in her throat, anger at this girl who is not letting her do her job correctly. 

“Listen, I don’t know why you’re lying to me but this is dangerous. I don’t know what your business with this situation is, but whatever you’re protecting, it’s gonna kill people. That’s what fiends do. They’re evil.” 

Keyleth shifts, her grasp on her staff white-knuckled. “I’m not protecting anything,” she answers tightly. “I can’t help you. I’m a druid, and a weak one at that. I can’t help  _ anyone. _ ”

Now there is a light tone of despair in her voice and Vex can feel the guilt coming off of the young woman in waves. She sighs deeply. She hopes this one’s problem won’t be something she bumps into in the dark of the forest. 

“Fine,” Vex huffs. “Do whatever you were here to do. I’ll go get the local priest of Pelor for help with that creature anyway. We need divine power to combat fiends.” 

Keyleth shifts again, staring at Vex with a strange intensity. She’s maybe not as hesitant as before. There is something stronger and harder about her. Vex wonders why she would be protecting a fiend. 

Evil has many faces, and maybe Keyleth was seduced by one of those. Vex couldn’t blame her if she was. She’d made that mistake before. She just wished she could save Keyleth from this. 

“I… Sorry for bothering,” Keyleth mutters before she starts walking northward, to the part of the trail Vex has yet to work. 

“Good luck,” Vex replies similarly as she watches the druid walk away. She seems to relax as she moves away from Vex. Well.

She screwed that one up. Keyleth could have been an ally, but her… nervousness around the topic of the fiend didn’t make her seem trustworthy. 

Vex sighs heavily, closing her eyes a little. This city is much more of a mess than expected, and now she really will have to go to that Temple of Pelor and see if there’s a priest that can help her root out the fiend.

Maybe that can be her late afternoon trip, she realizes. She’s made enough headway for today, and she has no desire to stick around to see Keyleth again once she walks back down the trail in a couple of hours, hopefully satisfied with her hike.

Now that she thinks of it, coming to one specific trail once a month or once every couple of months and never any other is a strange habit. What is Keyleth finding up that trail? Is there a hideout that Vex will walk in? She should have asked her that, fuck. If that druid knows all about this trail, Vex needs to know too. She has no desire to find herself falling into a trap because she didn’t ask the person who knew.

She packs up her things and gets the cub back from his pen, before starting the long walk back down to her truck. It takes her about two hours, and she makes sure to drive home and leave the animal there before she heads into town.

Whitestone looks beautiful in the winter light, she has to admit that. It’s like the city is made to exist in this weather. She hasn’t spent enough time here to gauge if this is the average weather or not. 

The high walls are almost blindingly light as she drives on the driveway surrounding the city, from the west side where she came out of the woods to the eastern side, where the cemetery and some of the temples are.

She’s done a little research and talked to some people. The Dawnfather is the main deity of the city and has been the patron of Whitestone and its ruling family, the De Rolos, since they arrived from Wildemount. Some stories say that the Parchwood Timberlands were created by the conflict between Pelor, the Dawnfather and Tharizdun, the Chained Oblivion, during the Calamity. 

Stories of divine battles mark the entirety of Exandria. Fallen giants make for mountains and greatswords fit for deities are considered responsible for rivers or valleys opening into land. The supposed origin of the Parchwood Timberlands is not the only story of this kind. The place she used to call home, Syngorn, is situated in the middle of a forest known for growing from the ley energy left behind after the Divergence. 

Vex has never been the most faithful. Her mother worshipped in that way that many do, partially and because of tradition and habit more than motivated by faith. When she and Vax left her for Syngorn, they found a city where the Elders’s very parents had been betrayed by the Arch Heart and left behind in the time of the Calamity. Though some had forgiven the deity and seen it as a gift, as it allowed them to become a people of the Feywild, some still held a grudge. 

She guesses she took in the grudge part more than the forgiveness part. 

The influence of the Dawnfather runs deep in Whitestone, from what she’s read. The Sun Tree towering in the center of the city, also represented on the city’s crest, was supposedly given by him. The Dawnfather’s temple, the Zenith, is a major place of worship, with the Lady’s Chamber. And it’s exactly what she needs.

Vex parks in the lot by the walled-up enclave of temples and cemetery. The Zenith leans against the Southern wall, towering over it. The Eastern gate is right in front of it, allowing a view of the tall wooden doors.

She steps into the yard in front of the temple and swallows. The door seems closed, but she doubts it actually is. She doesn’t know any reason why the temple would be closed today. Every house of worship of Pelor she’s seen before has been opened every day and night. 

The doors are beautiful, dark wood carved with wreaths and sun rays, flames licking up the sides of it.

There isn’t anyone outside, the yard quiet and empty. As she walks across the grass, she tracks more mud than green. Vex sighs before she uses the thick iron knocker on the door. It used to be painted in gold, it seems. There’s still chips of paint in some untouched corners. 

Her knock seems to echo a little inside but there is no immediate response. She waits there, wind slashing stray strands of hair into her face and sipping through her thick winter coat. From the corner of her eye, she notices that a part of the western wall of the temple is being rebuilt. She can’t imagine the cold in there.

She’s about to go and look closer at the fallen stones of the wall when something slides behind the doors. Bars probably, heavy iron locks opening. Within a few seconds, a smaller door opens in the massive right one. 

Behind the panel is a human, with salt and pepper hair and a matching beard. They wear cream robes with red and gold embroideries and detailing representing suns and shields, with a golden sash wrapped around the waist. Vex can’t see exactly but they seem to be wearing several thick layers of fabric. Something about them is familiar, as if she’s seen them before.

“Sun’s Greeting, what can I do for you?” They say in a low, soft voice that must sound beautiful in a song. 

Vex smiles. “Sun’s Greeting to you,” she responds. “I’m the new ranger of the Alabaster Sierras park, and I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time to discuss something I’ve sensed.” 

They nod, something shifting in their eyes, though Vex cannot tell what. 

“Vex’ahlia Vessar, right?” they ask. “I’ve heard about you.” They’re still smiling at her, but Vex feels frozen in place.

She hasn’t told anyone her last name yet. She’s been very careful not to. Many people and tribes do not use last names, and it is not uncommon enough to raise suspicion. The fact this person she has never met before knows a name they shouldn’t know is terrifying. She would drop into her trance and search for fey if she wasn’t in the middle of a conversation.

“Just… Just Vex’ahlia,” she replies, her voice wavering frustratingly.

“Father Reynal,” he introduces himself. “The current head of worship of the Zenith. Please, come in.” 

He takes a step back to let her walk into the temple. Vex’s eyes stare at the mark of the door on the stone of the floor, but her legs walk her in automatically. 

It’s almost as cold inside as it is outside, despite the large roaring fireplace behind the altar, across the room from the door. Candles are lit as the pale sun struggles to shine through the tall stained glass windows on the walls. There’s three on each of the longest walls. 

Her muddy boots dirty the red carpet, but the priest doesn’t seem to pay that any mind. He’s looking right at her. Vex swallows. The door closes behind her, leaving her in the low-lit empty church.

The wall to her right is partially fallen, covered by large blankets suspended from the ceiling and attached to below the holes, to try and provide cover from the elements. It’s not working well. 

Something has happened here, Vex can’t shake that feeling. The fallen walls and chipped paints and that thing about the De Rolos that the owner of the Alcove was so reluctant to talk about. Something terrible happened in this city, it hangs from the walls and through the air like ash after a catastrophic fire. It makes Vex want to cough it out, even if she knows it’s not really there.

The priest starts walking deeper in. He’s limping quite heavily. Vex follows him, dread coiling in her stomach. This is not the sunrise of divine positive energy she’s expected. 

“What can I help you with? What have you sensed?” Father Reynal asks and Vex manages to make her brain start again.

“I sensed a fiend. In a six-mile radius from the stone platform on which the castle sits,” she explains. “I’ve dealt with fiends a couple of times, but not knowing what this one’s power is, I was hoping to gather some divine help.” 

The priest raises an eyebrow at her. “I’m afraid a couple hours of hiking up the mountains is out of my current capacities,” he replies. His voice is much heavier, much more haunted. “That’s all you felt, right? A fiend, somewhere in that area. No specifics?” 

Vex shakes her head. “My training only offers rather… general information,” she sighs. “That’s all I can give you.” 

“I don’t think I can help you in any way,” he looks rather saddened by the fact. 

“Maybe there is another member of your house of worship that would be up for some fiend hunt in the woods?” She asks, raising an eyebrow.

Father Reynal huffs lightly. “I’m the only one here,” he says. “The only one taking care of this temple. If I can’t help you, no acolyte of Pelor can, in Whitestone.” 

Vex looks around the temple. The pews wear a layer of dust she hadn’t noticed originally. A gust of wind slips under the blanket trying desperately to keep it out. The candles’ lights tremble. It’s desolate. Father Reynal looks more tired and older like this, shadows digging in his face. 

“I thought the Dawnfather was the most worshipped deity of the city,” she whispers.

The priest chuckles humorlessly. “He’s still worshipped alright, but the people don’t find the time or energy to come to the temple anymore. They haven’t in years.” 

A lot of her information is wrong. Way too much for her comfort, actually. Not only did she not know the de Rolos were all dead, but now this too? The nagging feeling of dread tightens in her chest again.

“I’m sorry,” she swallows. 

Father Reynal sighs. “Whitestone hasn’t been the Dawnfather’s beloved city for a very long time, but it has only recently become this visible. We should have known something was wrong a long time ago but we were all blind.” 

The state of the city, the thing that happened, are weighing on this man something awful. Vex swallows.

“Do you know of anyone who could help me? I think the fiend is powerful enough for mind control.” She then starts recounting her encounter with Keyleth, who the half-elf is and why she’s worried about her, with the priest watching her intently. When she’s done, she looks at him honestly, earnestly. “I really need some help in this matter. A life may be at stake.” 

“I know the druid you’re talking about,” Father Reynal nods. “But I wouldn’t worry. She has a strong mind, and she knows the path well. She’s not enthralled. I would be aware.” 

That feels final. He’s shutting her out of that topic, shoving her worries away. He probably knows better than her about fiends and enthrallment but Vex can’t shake the stress in her bones. Maybe it’s only her own experience with Saundor, maybe she’s projecting it all on Keyleth and that fiend…

“Unless you have something else to ask…” the priest points out. “I will see you out. Things need to be done here, work.”

He coaxes Vex back to the door and opens it. She’s being shut out of something,  _ again _ . It’s what comes with being a stranger to Whitestone, but she’s here to take care of people and nature alike, not to hurt anyone. Why won’t they tell her things she needs to know? 

“I understand,” she says between gritted teeth as she steps back through the door. 

Right as the man is about to close the door back on her, he stops. His eyes land on her again, heavy and sad. 

“Maybe go ask in town. The Lady’s Chamber might know if there are good clerics in town,” Father Reynal advises. “And the tavern is always a good place to ask.” 

And with that, the thick carved wood slams in Vex’ face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Primeval Awareness: Favored Terrain - Forest  
> 22 Insight Check on Keyleth against which Keyleth makes an 18 Deception Check  
> Natural 1, Deception Check for Keyleth  
> 18, Religion check about the Dawnfather in Whitestone  
> 11 Insight Check on Father Reynal


	4. Crossbow Bolt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ser is a gender-neutral version of sir/ma'am

The Lady’s Chamber is an amphitheatre, standing facing the crossroads of the second biggest crossing of Whitestone. Vex has driven by it a couple of times now, and she’s always seen a couple of worshippers there. Now that she knows the state of the Zenith’s congregation, it seems like this one is much more popular.

The theater part is domed in cream-colored stone. It’s in much better shape than the Zenith, despite the desolate patches of grass peeking out of the stones of the courtyard surrounding it. It’s winter however, so desolate grass is no real surprise.

Whitestone feels a little less like somewhere she could run away and hide in now that she’s felt the heaviness lingering in the city’s past. Vex is a little shaken by Father Reynal, his attitude and the state of his temple. 

It’s mid afternoon and the sun has descended greatly on the horizon. Shadows grow as she steps closer to the door to the inner part of the Lady’s Chamber. The theater itself is empty, but she’s hoping the sanctum will at least have a priest. And with luck, this priest will be able to help her root the fiend out. 

The door is made of metal and she knocks on it with the scale-shaped knocker. Someone must have been right behind it, because she doesn’t have to wait very long before it opens. 

Vex tries not to let her disappointment show on her face. The person behind the door has thick white mustaches and receding white hair and looks weathered by time. He probably won’t be up for a hike and a battle with a fiend. 

Fuck, what is it with this town and elderly clerics? 

“Can I help you, ser?” The older priest says with a polite but not incredibly cheerful smile.

“Good day, Elder,” Vex replies in kind, before starting to explain again who she is and why she’s there. The facts haven't changed since she’s talked to Father Reynal.

She’s faced with a similar look from this priest than Father Reynal’s. A muted concern, and light dismissal. She’s already tired of this town’s clergy and she doesn’t even know this one’s name. 

“Come in, for a moment,” the priest says before letting Vex into the sanctum of the temple. 

It’s a simple main room with a rectangular wooden table. The legs are sturdy, skillfully carved. Contrary to the Zenith, this priest doesn’t seem to be alone. Sitting around the table, looking up at Vex as she enters, are two individuals. 

With her bow strapped to her back and her muddy boots, Vex initially felt like a sore thumb in these holy places. But when her eyes fall on one of the people in this room, she suddenly feels much better about herself.

Across the table from the entrance is a goliath. Vex has never talked to one, or been so close really. She knew there were a few working for the TWC, but none that she actually met. She’s seen a couple in passing.

They must be at least seven feet tall, skin grey and heavily tattooed all over their back and bald head. A giant axe, fit for their hand, rests against the table by their left side. By their right is sitting the other figure. Next to the goliath, this gnome looks even smaller. 

Their skin is a strange purple, almost brown, their hair black with a dark purple streak. It’s a charming thing really. The difference between these two is almost comical. Vex is immediately interested.

“This young ranger seems to have picked up a fiend in the forest,” the priest says. 

The goliath looks up in interest. “Do you want us to go smash it for you?” 

Vex chuckles lightly. “Actually yes,” she points out. “Do you have divine gifts?” 

The gnome next to the goliath laughs out lightly, looking over at their companion. “Oh, that’s funny!” Their voice is high and unbelievably sweet. Vex finds herself softening a little towards them, for no reason outside of that laugh and that voice.

“I don’t,” the goliath shrugs. “I mostly can smash things. But she’s got all the divine shit you want,” they gesture towards the gnome.

“My name is Pike Trickfoot,” the gnome introduces themselves, nodding. “I’m a cleric of the Everlight, Sarenrae. And this is Grog Strongjaw.” 

Oh that is definitely what Vex needs. The Everlight is a goddess of redemption and healing and that’s absolutely the energy needed to combat a fiend and save an enthralled half-elf. It’s hard enough to charm those of elven blood, so the fiend is either powerful or very lucky. Or both. Let’s not hope for that, though.

“Vex’ahlia, ranger of the Tal’Dorei Wilderness Conservation program, stationed in the Alabaster Sierra's outpost,” she introduces herself machinally. “So you’d be willing to help?” 

She’s maybe a little too business-minded, but she’s just… tired, and worried about this druid out there all alone and probably in dangerous situations. 

“I would need a couple of days of preparation and some more information, but I can probably do something, yes,” the gnome, Pike, replies. 

“I sensed them on the western edge of the stone platform Castle Whitestone stands on,” Vex starts explaining. “It’s reachable through a path, but it does require quite the bit of walking.” 

The priest, who has been silent for a few moments, shifts, clearing their throat.

“We’re up for walking,” Pike smiles. Grog nods. They seem to be working as a pair. “In two days at dawn? If that works for you.” 

It sounds almost too good to be true. She still doesn’t know the name of the priest whose temple she’s come into, but their guests are planning to help her with the fiend. After Father Reynal’s pushback, she was really not expecting much from the Lady’s Chamber.

“That works,” Vex nods. “We will meet at the mouth of the path? If you have a phone number, I could give you the map to it?” 

They exchange numbers, the gnome writing out ‘Pike Trickfoot’ with a sparkle emoji as her contact. Vex just puts herself in as Ranger Vex’ahlia. Simple and to the point, she doesn’t know this sunshine of a person. She’s not going to have little personal things in there.

The priest next to them clears their throat again. Vex sends them a look. They seem to be nervous about something. They’ve now cleared their throat many times. They’re either sick or they are uncomfortable. Or, third option, they’re trying to make the gnome and the goliath notice something. Vex’ eyes narrow.

Pike smiles, looking at Vex with a warm glint to her eyes. “I do hope this will be easy work and that we will not risk too much. But we never know, with these things. Keeper Yennen has seen enough of these in his days, haven’t you?” She asks the priest who sighs.

“We’re divine servants,” he says heavily. “All our paths are eventually called to cross with a fiend’s. It comes with the faith, unfortunately.” 

Vex keeps watching him. There’s something uneasy about this situation. Pike seems to be referring to something the priest does not want to discuss. Yet another untold horror. This town holds one at every corner. Everywhere Vex looks, she can see one.

“You should leave now,” Keeper Yennen nods.

This feels like déjà vu. Because it is. Once again, Vex is shoved away from a conversation, from knowledge. Once again, she politely takes the cue and leaves. She’s starting to get a little tired of it. 

She hopes that, in a couple of days, she can ask Pike a couple of questions about this place.

On her way out of the courtyard surrounding the Lady’s Chamber, someone bumps hard into Vex’s shoulder. She’s seen them coming, with their long blue coat and their brown boots, but she really thought there was space for them to cross without bumping. She curses at the sudden ache that radiates into her arm and chest and whips around.

“I’m sorry!” The person she’s just bumped into says, their right hand raising to rub over their left shoulder, while Vex is rubbing her right one. They seem younger than Vex, about eighteen years old. It’s hard to tell really, with this world they all live in, this world where everyone ages differently at different rates. They seem human, but they could very much be eight hundred years old. 

They’re familiar in the same way Father Reynal was. Which makes sense, because Vex saw them at the same place, at the same time, she realizes immediately.

They’re about the same size and stature as Vex is. Their hair is dark brown, almost black, but streaking with white around the temples. They had been standing in front of the Zenith, speaking with Father Reynal, when Vex drove by after her very first supply run.

“It’s all fine,” Vex shrugs. 

“Have a good day!” They call out as they rush towards the Lady’s Chamber.

Vex raises an eyebrow at the retreating figure. Two temples at once? Or maybe a new convert of Erathis. Father Reynal did say the worship of Pelor has dwindled in this town.

Everyone she has met in this town, except for the gnome and the goliath, has a strange nervous energy about them. They all seem to struggle with hiding secrets, as if the skeletons are too big to fit in the closets they try to force them in. The truth, or at least the story, of what has happened in Whitestone in the past few years is eager to jump out and reveal itself. 

Vex wants to know. After today, there’s no doubt about it. She wants to know about this fiend and about Castle Whitestone. About what happened to the De Rolos and why they’re gone. About the empty temples and the half dead tree in the center of town.

She guesses it’s a little rich of her to want to know and stop people from lying to her, when she’s herself running from the past and refuses to tell anyone her own last name. When she’s trying to hide her own past from herself. 

She drives back home quietly, without the radio on. She lets her own thoughts be loud for once, no matter how uncomfortable it is to hear her own self-reflection, to discuss her past and future with this horrible nagging thing that is her own mind. 

The sun is setting over the trees, she has a cub to take care of, and she wants to rest. She wants to light a fire, make some coffee and settle by the warmth with the cub napping on her feet. 

The loneliness is getting more than bearable, it’s getting enjoyable. She loves the quiet of her cabin in the evenings, when she hears that lone wolf cry out. She’s never heard any other wolf respond to it. Poor creature. She can relate to what it must be feeling.

She does all as planned, gathers her things and makes her fire and settles with a blanket. She brushes out her hair. It’s growing more than it used to. It had fallen a lot when she was in Shademurk Bog, especially in the last couple of months, when it had gotten unbearable. It’s growing again now. She’s growing again.

Right as she’s about to fall asleep, the wolf cries. And to her great surprise, a second cry answers it. She goes to sleep with a smile on her face, and the cub snuggled against her chest. She stopped making him sleep in the crate some time ago.

Vex awakes to a chill and misty forest morning. She sees the fog wrap around the trees. The ones around the cabin are a little thinner, a little younger. The forest itself gets thinner around civilisation, as if to protect its oldest, most precious mysteries with barriers upon barriers of younger fodder.

She’s halfway through her breakfast when the talkie-walkie hisses with an incoming call. The thing that’s not supposed to work, because the other half of the pair of walkies was lost with the previous ranger.

“Hello? Hello, is there anyone here?”

The voice seems a little anxious, a little hurried. Something’s wrong. Vex bolts from her chair and rushes to the dust-covered walkie. 

“Ranger Vex’ahlia, speaking. Can you tell me what’s happening?” She asks, forcing her voice to stay calm and soothing.

“Yeah, huh, hi, huh,” the voice continues. “We found this and a body? In the middle of a clearing?” 

A body? Vex’s heart freezes in her chest and she forces herself to swallow. She’s trained for this. She needs to call in the local authorities, which she knows to be the Pale Guard. She grabs her phone from her pocket without thinking, ready to dial as she walks. 

“Can you tell me where you are?” She responds. “There should be a trail marker within a hundred yards of you, if you haven’t strayed too far from the path. I’ll be there asap.” 

The walkie goes quiet then, and she waits with bated breath for the person to contact her back with a position. It takes a few horrible frozen minutes for the receiver to crackle again, and she’s given the coordinates. 

“I’ll be there asap,” she repeats. ”I will be contacting the authorities too, so do not be surprised if members of the Pale Guard arrive as well.” 

“Okay, thank you,” the voice replies. 

Vex volts back, dialing the Pale Guard emergency number that gets her directly to someone without going through any helplines. She slides the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she straps her quiver to her thigh and grabs her bow. She puts her coat on and walks into the foggy morning.

It takes her about forty-five minutes to get to the trail marker she was given. She follows instructions and finds the camp of the person that contacted her quickly. A fire is lit in the center of an encampment of three small orange tents. She notices a crossbow resting against one of the tents’ sides.

“Hello? I’m the ranger you had on the walkie,” she calls out.

Three figures come out of the tent with the crossbow. They’re tall, two humans and a dwarf. One of the humans, tall with blonde hair, has a smaller version of a quiver strapped to their thigh. 

The dwarf’s right hand is gloved, and in the glove, they hold the walkie. It’s dirty, with dark stains that Vex already knows is blood. 

“Thank you for coming,” one of the humans says.

“I’m doing my job,” she replies. “Now show me the body.”

They take her a little bit further from the camp. The body is half-sat against a tree. The right side of it is burnt to a crisp and the left is wracked by large claw marks. The blood that burst from those wounds has long dried on the intact clothing. 

There’s no way Vex can recognize them by looking at their face, half is charred and the other is almost fully melted from the heat, frozen now into a horrifying grimace. No wonder those who found the body sounded so tense on the walkie.

Her eyes fall on the insignia on the mostly intact part of the clothing. She swallows. It’s a triangular shape, of a burnt orange color, with the silhouette of Tal’Dorei in dark green over it. The letters TWC are written in white over the continent. Vex wears the insignia’s twin on her coat. 

It’s Regae. It has to be. She doesn’t know of any other people from the TWC in the area, and the body isn’t old enough to be a previous ranger. Regae had been there for fifty years when he disappeared. 

She takes a deep breath. “Alright,” she nods. “Thank you for calling me in. The Pale Guard will be here shortly to identify what has happened there.” 

The human with the small quiver now has their crossbow in hand, ready to go. Machinally, Vex searches for the crossbow bolts and what they look like. She did make a promise, however unspoken, to the cub, after all.

Her sight falls on the ends of the crossbow bolts, the fletching. The pattern is immediately familiar. It’s the same one as the one she had to pull out of her sleeping cub. Her eyes narrow at the human.

“May I have your name, please?” She asks, trying to keep the anger from her voice. It seems to work, as the human doesn’t look as suspicious as he would have otherwise. She takes an arrow out of her quiver. 

“Donavan Clarence,” the human nods. 

“I see you enjoy hunting, Donovan,” Vex gestures towards the crossbow. “What kind of game are you after? Are you more of a pheasant type, or do you go after bigger prey? Let’s say, bears for example.” 

Her voice is cold as ice now, her hand on her bow, ready to notch the arrow, draw back, and shoot. 

The human stares at her intensely. “Why are you asking?” They growl. 

“Maybe because it’s my fucking job to keep the innocent creatures of this forest safe from criminals like you,” she shrugs, and draws her bow. 

She’s incredibly close to them, and if she shoots, it will hurt. They both know it. She hopes the Pale Guard isn’t far. By killing the mother of the cub, Donovan Clarence has committed a crime. National Parks protect the creatures they watch.

The human looks at her, full of contempt. “You have no idea what you’re doing, half-elf,” they hiss. Their hand drifts to the bolts and Vex’ hand loosens. 

The arrow shoots through the hair and goes straight through the palm of the human. They scream in surprised pain. Blood gushes out of the wound and starts streaming down their hand and arm, soaking their sleeve. 

Around them, the two others get their swords out, ready to defend their friend. Vex swallows. Okay, maybe she jumped into this one a little too early. With lightning-fast motions, she notches another arrow into the bow.

“You have no right to hurt the creatures of this park,” Vex continues. “The only person allowed to deal with threats in here is me.”

“It was a last minute situation, ser!” The other human tries, but their voice falters with hesitation and Vex knows they’re lying. 

The cold eyes of Donovan Clarence and their total lack of remorse is enough to see clearly through this conversation. They had fun killing an innocent bear and trying to kill its cub as well. It was pure cruelty.

“The Pale Guard is on its way,” Vex reminds, taking a step back to encompass all of them in her line of sight. “You have no choice but to surrender. The one who killed the bear, if they’re not the same as Ser Clarence, will probably be arrested for poaching.” 

She can see them start to shift uncomfortably. They’re calm for now, but this is not going to continue to be calm if it goes on much longer. Her bow is drawn again. 

They stay like this, waiting for one of them to make a move, for what feels like an hour. It’s probably close to a couple of seconds before there’s noise coming from the path and a loud shout of “Pale Guard, put your weapons down!”.

Vex exhales. Thank the Gods for this. She knows she wouldn’t have been able to take down three people. They may not look strong enough to match her one-on-one, but this would have been three-on-one. She wouldn’t have come out of there looking good, if at all.

She gets to explain her point and the Pale Guard believes her. She’ll have to answer more questions in town, but they know what her job is, and she introduced herself when she first arrived. It also seems like Donovan Clarence has been suspected to be a criminal hunter for a long time. They’re just finally able to get some proof of it.

As Clarence and their buddies are taken away, Vex’ attention is violently brought back to the very dead body of the previous ranger. One of the members of the Pale Guard there is now  crouched by the body, running spells over it to try and determine cause and date of death. 

They get back up and walk back to where Vex is standing, arms crossed, looking quite worried. 

“We’ve found traces of fiendish magic on the burnt side of this body,” they explain. “You have a fiend on your hands, ser.”

Vex sighs. “Thank you,” she nods. “I sensed a fiendish presence around Castle Whitestone yesterday.” 

The guard looks around. “We’re quite far from the Castle Whitestone, in a completely different direction.” 

That’s true, but she’s pretty sure the range of her trance would be enough to find a fiend around this area. “How long have they been dead?” 

There’s more looking around and more thoughtful pondering airs on the guard’s face. They’re writing things absent-mindedly on a red-covered notepad. 

“With the weather here and all… I would say about four months.”

Four months? That means there’s been a fiend around the forest for at least that long. Vex prays to anyone that can hear that Regae hadn’t been investigating other deaths from the same creature when they found it. 

“Would the Pale Guard be able to lend me a couple of people to help defeat the fiend?” Vex asks after a moment. 

The guard stares at her. “The Pale Guard isn’t trained to hunt creatures in the Parchwood Timberlands, ser.” 

“It’s ma’am,” Vex specifies more out of habit than anything else. “Then who is trained to do that?” 

They tense slightly, closing up their little notepad and shoving their hands in their pockets. “That would be the Grey Hunt, ma’am, but they haven’t really been around since…” 

Has she stumbled upon another one of those untold stories, again? How many fucking mysteries are there in this godsforsaken town? 

“Since what? I’m new here, I don’t know anything about the local history,” she snaps. 

“Since the De Rolo massacre.” 

Almost immediately after that, their superior calls for the guard she’s been talking to and they’re delighted to escape. Vex curses at the retreating back of the humanoid and stomps one foot in the soft floor of the forest. 

The De Rolo massacre. What the fuck happened in this city? Why won’t anyone tell her about it? She can feel her own frustration growing in her chest. She wishes she was a black dragon, so she could spit out that angry acid. 

After that, none of the guards seem to want to talk much to her. They pack up the body of Regae to bring it to their lab and verify the readings of the initial spells, and only nod at her goodbye. 

She’s left alone in the clearing, with fire burnt out and the tents still fixed into the ground. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Religion Check, 15, on Sarenrae  
> Insight check 20, on Keeper Yennen  
> Investigation check, 15, on the body  
> Deception check when trying to keep her anger from showing, 20  
> Hunter: Sleight of Hand check to load the crossbow: 16 vs Vex’ passive perception (20).  
> Longbow attack, 27 (nat18+9) to hit. 9 damage.


	5. Sleep

Vax’ildan awakes to the ringing of the great clock in the corridor that leads to the bedroom. It clangs a little, old and cranky. Vax buries his face into the pillow. A scent of patchouli and spices linger onto the fabric of the pillowcase. He smiles lazily.

He refuses to open his eyes for a while, to let himself feel really awake. He has to leave Westrunn today, drive the last leg of his journey to Whitestone to see Vex. He’s missed her terribly, but right in this moment, in this bed, he really doesn’t want to leave. 

He feels himself being gently pulled away from his pillow and back towards the man whose bed he’s currently lounging in, and lets it happen with lazy happiness. The only thing he really does is turn over to face the other, cuddling into his warmth. 

“I shall soon contact the rulers of Whitestone to set up a teleportation circle…” Gilmore grumbles sleepily into Vax’s hair. “Having you leave me like this is much too cruel.” 

Vax chuckles lightly and looks up at his boyfriend with a smile. Gods, he’s beautiful. He always is but this… sleep-mussed and heavy-lidded and warm version of Shaun Gilmore is one Vax especially cherishes. 

“You would go through that costly and lengthy process for a few hours more of me?” Vax hums, kissing Gilmore’s lips lightly. 

“In a heartbeat, Vax’ildan.” 

Gods, he’s the only person allowed to call Vax by his full name. He’s the only person that doesn’t make it sound contemptuous. It’s beautiful on his lips, with his light Marquesian accent. Vax melts, reaching to slowly caress Gilmore’s chest.

He’s been in Westrunn for a week now. A lot of that week has been spent in this bed, though he did walk around and explore when Gilmore was working. That man will never stop working for anything, and Vax accepted that a long time ago. Watching the enchanter at work is entertaining enough.

Vax pulls up the deep purple sheets as he shifts to rest a little more comfortably by Gilmore. 

“I still have a few hours,” he hums. “Whitestone isn’t that far from here…” 

Gilmore rolls his eyes a little. “I’d rather you not be driving through the Parchwood Timberlands in the dark, darling,” he points out. “There are many stories about the creatures populating that area. I would hate for you to find your fate.” 

Vax huffs a little, but doesn’t say anything back. He loves Vex, wants to see her, but he has no desire to leave Gilmore. He doesn’t see him often enough as it is, both busy and living on very different sides of the continent. It’s a bit of a struggle sometimes, despite video calls and other nifty technological ways of seeing each other.

“Maybe you could just… call your sister and let her know you won’t be there for a couple of more days…” Gilmore points out, starting to pepper kisses over Vax’s face, anywhere but his mouth. “I’m sure she’ll understand…” 

The kisses get a little more insisting and Vax can’t help the happy sigh that escapes his lips. Gilmore smirks at his success. That smirk does things to Vax’s heart and body that he can’t actively describe, especially right now as his mind is very focused on the direction and pattern of the kisses, on the light scratching of Gilmore’s facial hair.

They roll over a little and Gilmore’s hand gently comes to tuck a strand of long black hair behind Vax’s ear. Their eyes meet and Vax starts drowning in brown so dark it’s almost black. He can’t refuse this man anything, can he?

“Come on,” Gilmore hums. “Just a couple of days…”

Vax leans up to capture his lips but Gilmore moves away at the last moment. 

“You’re playing, Shaun,” Vax points out, raising an eyebrow. He hooks one of his legs over his boyfriend’s hip. 

Gilmore raises an eyebrow. “And what are you doing?” He asks with his signature smirk. 

“I’ll call her,” Vax sighs after a moment. “If she doesn’t need me, I will stay. If I hear one thing that makes me think she needs me there? I’ll go.” 

Gilmore nods. “Of course, beautiful Vax’ildan. I will never keep you from her if she needs you, or if you need her.” 

Vax leans up again, and this time, Gilmore lets him kiss him. They make out like this for a moment, a bare hint of heat between them, waiting to be kindled to a burning fire. 

“Thank you,” Vax smiles. “But I will do this once we’re out of bed. Right now, I have something much better to do.” He smirks and shoves Gilmore back gently, pivoting his weight to roll them over and straddle him.

The next hour or so melts away in between the two of them.

\----------

Keyleth darts through the tangled weeds of the Parchwood Timberlands, avoiding bigger and harsher foes and finding her way back to where she’ll be safe for the rest of the night. Her rations are too short this time, she wasn’t carefully monitoring them, and she doesn’t want to go hungry. 

Her backpack is heavy with clockwork machines that she needs to sell soon, and she’ll need muscles to carry it back into Whitestone. Her monthly task is complete, and she’ll soon be able to go back to her own work. 

She left more food and resources than usual, and warned him that she wouldn’t be there for a while. She needs two months or so to get to Terrah and complete the first trial of her Aramente. She can’t wait any longer. 

It’s been years already, and her people are waiting for her at home. They have no idea of the situation she’s gotten herself into here. They have no idea where she stands. Or where she is. 

If she takes too long, they’ll think her dead, and she can’t imagine doing that to her father, not when the loss of her mother hangs over her like a shadow. Following in her footsteps was necessary but worrying for everyone. Including her. She doesn’t want to either die or cause her father more grief.

She rushes through the low bushes until she finds the now much clearer path. From there, her instincts guide her to the entrance of the tunnel and she passes through the smaller hole without issue. Being able to turn into small beasts is a blessing in these kinds of situations.

The tunnel is damp and dark and Keyleth hates it. Even when she’s in her wolf form it’s uncomfortable. And yet she finds herself there every month or so, stuck in this routine that doesn’t seem to promise to end any time soon. 

She turns herself back into her regular form, stretches her arms out. Her belly is full now. She can try and sleep. 

Drops of water crash into the stone below her feet, resounding in the empty tunnel. She decides to light a fire and does quick work of it. She’s done this what feels like a million different times.

Hopefully no one will notice the smoke coming out of the secret tunnel. That would be just Keyleth’s luck. Maybe that ranger will see the smoke and find the entrance and everything will be lost because Keyleth was cold and wasn’t careful this time.

She huffs, staring into the flame. Things have gotten so much worse now that the new ranger is there. The one before was either oblivious or just let them do things as long as they didn’t leave a blood trail. 

This one, Vex’ahlia, seems very different. She sensed the fiend, which the previous one might have also done, but hadn’t asked Keyleth or anyone else about it. And she’s investigating it, and going around asking for help in defeating it. 

The situation just got much more dangerous for everyone involved. 

She closes her eyes and tries to calm down. Her pulse is quick, her mind working overtime. She needs to calm down. She doesn’t want to bring creatures that would sense her anxiety to her. And she doesn’t want to break. Not while her best friend might be in earshot, and might hear her pain and fear. 

She’ll do the screaming and the crying and the possible breaking of furniture once she’s in an inn or in another cave on her way to Terrah. Then she’ll be able to let it all out and punch the walls and heal herself afterwards. Right now, it’s too close. She needs to hold on.

Keyleth decides to turn back into her wolf form to sleep. It’s easier to keep warm that way.

\---------------

_ The gun is warm. It beats against his hand like a heartbeat, maybe to the beat of his quickened heart, his adrenalin and revenge-fueled heart. They’re gone, they’re dead, they all have wounds, perfectly round holes that turned their bodies cold when he shot them. _

_ It gets warmer against his skin. His fingers are splattered with red dots, blood splatters. Everything feels blurry. His vision has long ago tunneled. The only thing he can see right now, really see, is her. _

_ She stands across from him, arms raised, a rapier in her right hand. It’s useless, so useless. A contemptuous, hungry laugh comes out of his mouth, taunting her. A rapier is nothing against a gun. It will never be anything.  _

**_Percival…_ **

_ The voice licks at the back of his skull. He knows what he has to do. His hand rises, the gun aimed at her, the bullet in the chamber, her name on the metal.  _ Cassandra de Rolo. 

_ “Brother…” She says softly. She’s distressed, he can taste it on his lips, it’s sugar sweet and delectable. _

**_She’s all yours for the taking… the last of the ones who have betrayed you…_ **

_ She has betrayed him. She shoved him away and called herself another name. Why isn’t Cassandra Briarwood the name on the barrel? It should be, if she renounces the De Rolo name.  _

_ But this is Cassandra. She was never supposed to die. He was always going to forgive her. She stands there in front of him and he loves her. He forgives her. He always will, over and over. He understands she didn’t have a choice. _

_ Why is his gun pointed at her head, why is his hand so steady? _

_ “I’m sorry,” she cries. Tears fall on her cheeks. He wants to taste her anguish. He wants to devour her soul. _

_ What? No. It’s his baby sister. She’s everything, and he thought he had lost her forever. She’s everything to him.  _

**_She made the rebellions fail, she made Whitestone crumble. She’s the one who kept your people subjugated. It’s_ ** **her** **_fault…._ **

_ Smoke fills every corner of his being, his body, his soul, his eyes. All he can see is the spot he’s chosen to fire at, right in between her eyebrows. Her hair is still brown, while his turned white months ago. She needs to die. _

_ His little sister who saved him, whose body he still saw in his nightmares, shot through with more arrows than he could count. The one he still thought was dead when he killed the first name on his list, the first guilty one. His little sister that loved books as much as him, but liked sneaking out much more. _

_ Cassandra and her bear plushie that he’s pretty sure he saw in her room when he investigated the castle. Cassandra who is wearing their mother’s armor right now. Cassandra who told him she saw the Briarwoods kill their parents, from the balcony she’d snuck onto in the middle of the night and yet who STILL, after EVERYTHING, wanted to become one of them. _

_ The monster in his heart screens and shoves and claws into him and settles there. Cassandra is still staring at him, waiting.  _

_ “Why?” She asks. “Percy, why?”  _

_ “Because you betrayed us,” he replies. “ _ **_Because you betrayed me_ ** _.” _

_ “I had no choice,” Cassandra shouts this time. Her tears are rivers on her face, there’s blood splattered on there too. He is vaguely aware of a singing burning pain where he was hit by the sharp end of a sword. “They took me in, they forced me to work for them, and then…”  _

_ “And then you TURNED,” he roars out with venom and hatred and the pain, the greatest pain in the world. He loves her, and the voice in his head keeps saying he should kill her. Because he loves her. Because he trusted her. Because she was supposed to be gone. Wait… _

_ He freezes a moment. _

_ “Did you know she was alive?” He asks out loud. He can see that Cassandra is confused. His grip falters a second. _

**_Of course I knew, Percival…_ **

_ The hand holding the gun starts shaking. He doesn’t know why. But it does. Betrayal erupts again in his chest, and it hurts almost as much as Cassandra’s did. It floods through him like a cleansing fire.  _

_ Cassandra had no choice. Orthax however… _

_ “Was her name supposed to be on the gun?”  _

**_Get your revenge, Percival. She_ ** **deserves** **_it._ **

_ The hand gets steadier again. The tunnel vision comes back and smoke billows from his eyes again. But this time, the  _ knowledge  _ is enough. Percy shoves back.  _

_ “Answer me!” He shouts. Cassandra takes a step back. _

**_Yes. I knew of her betrayal, and I knew that you wouldn’t accept it. So I hid it until you were ready… Now KILL HER!_ **

_ No. No, no, no. Percy shoves himself back, forces himself to take a step back. The gun is shaking now, greatly, and he knows he doesn’t have enough control. Orthax can still pull the trigger. _

_ “Run!” He shouts at his sister. “Cass, run!” _

_ She looks at him, stares in confusion. “What-” _

_ “For the love of Pelor, PLEASE, RUN, NOW!” He screams, and forces another step back.  _

_ Orthax pulls the trigger and the shot goes wide, but Cassandra’s eyes widen.  _

_ “Percy… I’m sorry…” She still isn’t running. What will get her to run? _

_ Orthax’s claws sink into Percy’s soul and the pain is greater than anything he has experienced before. His eyes water, but the liquid is not clear. It’s red. He’s crying blood. He’s breaking. _

_ Another shot fires. It hits closer to Cassandra this time. She’s frozen in place. _

_ “Cass… Cass please…” He begs, voice twisted from the agony of resisting Orthax. “Please go. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.”  _

_ Cassandra’s hand goes down, her rapier hits the ground and she starts running. Percy doesn’t manage to take a step back. Orthax laughs in his ear, triomphant, and another shot fires.  _

_ Cassandra screams in pain. Orthax laughs. Percy screams. _

_ Her body stumbles to the ground and the name disappears from the barrel of the gun. The gun is warm in his hand, his eyes are still crying blood and he feels something breaking, over and over again as she seizes. There’s blood everywhere, a sea of crimson, that’s all he can see.  _

_ She stops moving. Percy’s heart stops beating for a moment. He dies with her there, until Orthax brings him back to life. Until he’s forced to watch her body be turned over by his own foot, prisoner of his own skull. She’s gone. Her eyes are open but the light is gone, they’re glassy and hideous.  _

_ The hand brings the gun up. In the place of the names he spent years thinking of killing, new ones have appeared.  _ Keyleth. Father Reynal. Keeper Yennen. Simon Whisk. 

His eyes open in the darkness of the room he inhabits in the castle. His hands are red with blood, and so is most of his clothing. He doesn’t know where the red is from. He doesn’t care to go look for what he’s done when he wasn’t in control. 

Orthax laughs in his mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rolls for this chapter:
> 
> Percy: Pepperbox Attack: Special Violent Shot, using 2 grit points (Misfire now 6) 18 (rolled 7) hits, 10 initial damage + 13 from violent shot, 23 damage


	6. Fiend Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a very... unnatural fight scene coming up xD Just warning you.  
> I'm using D&D mechanics for fights, so it is a little stilted but oh well.

“It’s fine, thank you anyway.” 

Vex slams the red button on her phone, as if clicking on it harder will make her frustration known to the world. She wishes she had an older phone so she could slam down the handset onto the base. It would be like slamming a door at the end of an argument; a physical show of her feelings. 

She’s been on the phone all morning, trying desperately to get some answers on what she’s supposed to do with the fiend now that it has killed at least one person. Not anyone, at that, someone trained to take things down and keep parks protected. If Regae was anything like her, he had put up a fight before dying. But the creature had prevailed.

The one thing she was told about was the Grey Hunt. Not only did the Pale Guard officer tell her about it on the crime scene, but pretty much everyone she’s tried calling told her to ask them. Except they don’t exist anymore. They haven’t in years.

There are no records of previous members either. Vex wants to scream in frustration. For the first time since she’s arrived, she realizes how alone she is. She wasn’t so alone before. In Shademurk, she could ask Saundor and if he was in a good mood and if she played her cards right, he would use his amazing influence to help her. Here she has no one. She almost misses him.

What? No. She doesn’t miss him. She can’t miss him, she won’t. The fact that he was supposed to love her and that she had to bargain with him, the very sovereign of Shademurk Bog, to get him to do anything for her, from dishes to actually working with her to make Shademurk better.

She doesn’t miss him. At all. Her new home is completely clear of him, empty of memories of him. She’s not going to choke on his presence every time she looks somewhere. It’s better here. She’s better now than she ever was before. 

If Saundor was here, he would take credit for her strength, for her work. He would say he made her, shaped her into the ranger he is today. He always used to say that. She used to believe him. 

Vex stands from her chair and paces a little into the cabin. No Grey Hunt. No Pale Guard. As far as she knows, Pike Trickfoot and Grog Strongjaw are still willing to go hunt a fiend with her. That’s all she has. Her own limited abilities, a cleric and a goliath. And no Vax. 

She told him to stay in Westrunn a little. She was hoping to have the fiend problem sorted before he arrived, to be honest, so she wouldn’t have to ask for his help. He’s helped her way too much already. 

Besides, she’d rather know he’s with Gilmore, enjoying himself and his boyfriend. They don’t see each other enough. She can manage without him. She should be able to. She’s a strong, capable person. 

In the bathroom, she splashes cold water onto her face, forcefully clearing her thoughts. When she looks up from the sink to look into the mirror, she swallows, hard. She looks tired. There are dark circles in the brown skin below her eyes. Her lips are cracked, from the cold. She’s forgotten to put on lip balm. Her hair is dirty, greasy. 

It’s been three days. Three days since she’s received that call on the forgotten radio. Three days and she’s already forgotten to take care of herself. She’s really holding on by a thread, isn’t she? 

Her nails dig painfully into her palm and only then does she stop staring at her own tired face. 

She walks away and slams the door behind herself. The force makes the wall shudder and it feels right. Vex smiles a little. That was the first hint of satisfaction she’s felt since her arrow shot through Donovan Clarence’s hand. 

The cub at her feet whines a little, turning over from where he’d been napping.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly and crouches to pet the dark brown fur. “Slamming the door woke you up, huh?” She asks softly. 

The cub leans into her hand like he’s starving for touch. He’s always going to forgive her for these things, isn’t he? Her smile widens slightly, growing more relaxed and genuine.

Her phone buzzes and she reaches for it, before sitting on the floor next to the cub. It’s a text from Vax, with an image attached. She opens the image first. 

It’s a photo of the inside of a shop, large and filled with glass-covered shelves. She can see the shine of gold and silver and precious gems behind the glass. Her eyebrow raises. The fact they’re still behind glass and not in Vax’s sneaky hand is surprising. She looks over at the caption of the image.

_ Exercise in restraint: Gilmore’s shop. Many trinkets, none for me. _

About five different dirty remarks come to Vex’s mind but she pushes them back. Vax is a bit uncomfortable with discussions of his sex life, joking unfactual remarks or not. She’s not going to make him uncomfortable now. 

She takes a picture of the cub snuggled in the space between her crossed legs. 

_ I saw this one and couldn’t help myself… Trinket addiction running in the family? _

She sends the picture but looks down at the cub with a thought. Trinket is a good name. She likes it. Loves it, actually.

“May I call you Trinket, darling?” She asks. Giving him a name means keeping him, but she’s far past that point now. She’s known it, deep down for a while.

The cub doesn’t seem to mind it. Vex presses a kiss to the furry head with a smile, the biggest in a long time.

They say rangers often find companions. Vex has just found hers. 

\------------

They meet at the mouth of the trail, the way they’d originally planned. It’s a few days later than expected, yes, but Vex has been busy desperately trying to get some sort of official help. She was hoping not to have to ask Pike and Grog.

She sees the goliath before the gnome, the giant axe hanging heavy over the man’s shoulder. By his side, the cleric looks way less aggressive. Vex doesn’t know which one will be more useful. Divine healing or brute force. Either way, she’s incredibly glad to have someone by her side right now.

“So,” she smiles nervously. “Thank you for coming. I apologize for pushing back the date of meeting. I was hoping to get some sort of professional help, but it seems like Whitestone doesn’t have the infrastructure.”

The cleric, Pike, nods. “The city has seen a lot of things.” 

Vex doesn’t know what that means, really. She doesn’t ask. Not right now. She’ll ask later, once they have a dead fiend and a victory under their belt. People were much more likely to spill secrets if adrenaline and serotonin were flowing through their veins. 

Sometimes, she’s almost ashamed of the many tricks she’s learned throughout the years. And then she remembers it was people like the Syngornian Elves and Saundor who made her learn these things,and she stops feeling like she should have somehow stayed innocent through all the shit they put her through.

They start on their way, not to where she initially sensed the fiend, but to where the body was found. It’s more likely that they’ll find usable traces there. 

The winter cold bites at her cheeks, but the goliath is shirtless. She raises an eyebrow, both respectful and thinking him mad to be out there like this. They start climbing up the trail in relative silence, with the crunching of their boots and the jingling of the cleric’s chainmail. 

Vex doesn’t know what kind of small talk to do now. This is not a light-hearted situation, and she just wants the creature out of her woods. 

“Have you killed fiends before?” The goliath asks after a moment.

Vex looks over at him over her shoulder. “Not a fiend, no. I’ve killed other things. Fey, mostly.” 

Pike raises an eyebrow. “Fey? Were you around the gates to the Feywild before you came to the Alabaster Sierras?”

Vex hesitates for a moment. It’s a lot of information to give to complete strangers. She shrugged the paranoia off however. “I was. I was tasked with keeping an eye on a part of the Verdant Expanse, that, just like Syngorn, can switch between the Feywild and our plane. I lived in the Feywild for a part of my time there.”

“That’s so cool!” Pike grins and Vex can’t help the smile that tugs at the corner of her lips.

It  _ is  _ pretty cool.

The Feywild is somewhere most people have barely heard of, let alone visited. And Vex, though in pretty horrible circumstances, has been able to call it home for a moment of her life. On the way up the trail, her two companions manage to coax her into recounting the Feywild.

She tells them of the permanent dusk, of the sun that’s always at its most beautiful, its most reddening and purpling state duskward of Shademurk. She tells them of the dark of the night on the other side, of looking at the sky and never knowing exactly the time. She tells them of age-old trees that hold secrets they only tell the worthy.

She tells them of dryads and naiads and the howling of lycans. She doesn’t tell them of Saundor but she tells them of Fenthras.

One day, she’ll reach under her bed, take it out and shoot. It’s still the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, the wood alive and the power tangible. She still dreams of wielding it, as she runs free through ever shifting woods, laughter on her lips.

When they make it to the campsite where the body was found, she feels lighter than she has in a long time. Both the cleric and the goliath are smiling lightly. They exchange a look, and then get to work.

Vex sits on a stone and starts expanding her consciousness as Pike runs identifying and tracking spells on whatever magic trace they can find. It’s hard to tune out her kind babbling or Grog’s regular deep-toned comments, but Vex finally manages and exhales.

With her breath goes her mind and soon she finds herself floating, drifting, one with the wind and with nature. She barely has to wait to find the fiendish presence. It pings on her mental radar loud and clear and  _ close.  _

Way too close. They’re close to its lair.

Vex’s eyes open wide and she comes back crashing into herself. She barely gives herself time to come back into her body before she shoots to her feet and shares her findings. Grog takes his giant axe out. Pike unclasps a mace the size of her body from Grog’s back. 

Vex takes her bow in hand and notches an arrow, ready to draw and shoot. They start walking in the direction where she can still feel the echoing presence of the creature. It rests heavy on her back of her neck, a pressure she can’t shake.

They walk into higher grass off of beaten paths. Vex slips into the underbrush with ease, but it’s far from the case for the two accompanying her. Pike in particular makes great noise and gets caught in almost every weed she can possibly get caught on. Vex huffs. Here goes the effect of surprise.

They find the lair empty, and her heart tightens in her chest. Fuck. It knows they are there.

A shape moves from the shadows overhead and Vex immediately reacts. Her body moves without her thinking anything through. Her arrow shoots through the air and hits right in the middle of the creature’s chest. It screams in pain. Vex smirks. She’s good at this.

The creature has stopped long enough for all of them to see what it is. It’s tall, Vex’s size. Its skin is spiky, barbed, horns sprouting from its skull. Its scream makes the air around it shiver with heat. 

The scream is immediately answered by one from Grog. The goliath steps forward with bloodshot eyes and angry determination. He swings his axe forward and pounces on the creature. Maybe his rage has distracted him, because his axe swings wide, the creature too fast to be hit by the massive weapon. 

The cleric immediately jumps into action, hands shining with divine light as she reaches up with her holy symbol. Vex can see the wings of Sarenrae carved onto the metal before they disappear behind the burning white light. It shoots out of the symbol and hits the creature.

It screams again as the radiant light engulfs it, lighting it up and burning it with divine power. If they were in darkness, it would be obvious to all of them now. There’s no way any of them are going to miss their next hit against it.

Grog has gotten too close to the creature however, and though it’s still burning with light, it takes no time to attack the giant target the goliath makes. It swipes at the grey-skinned man, one hand missing before the second catches the goliath in the chest, dragging into the skin. Vex winces, but the goliath seems more okay than expected.

The creature tries to hit him with his tail but Grog dodges it with a shiver-inducing grin. “Come on, devil devil!” He taunts. “Is that all you can do?” 

Vex’s eyes cross with the creature’s and she takes the opportunity to Hunter’s Mark it. She reaches for another arrow, but her fingers rip against her quiver, shaking lightly now that she’s realized what they were facing. She curses. Pike sends her a slightly worried look.

Grog retaliates against the clawing he’s just received. The axe cleaves a giant gash into the shoulder of the fiend. The goliath immediately reiterates, hacking at the shoulder. The arm of the fiend is now hanging by tendons. It seems to be in incredible pain.

Reaching up with its good arm, the creature screams, warmth radiating from it. Flames erupt from the hand of the creature. Both tries miss the massive target of Grog. The creature seems confused. That’s what pain like the one being inflicted to it does.

Vex notches in another arrow. It grazes the creature but is deflected by its spikes. She groans in annoyance. None of this is working. Why is she so useless right now? 

Grog’s axe finally cuts off the creature’s arm, but it doesn’t seem to slow it down that much. Another ray of blinding light hits the devil, however. Pike is breathing hard, but her spells are finding purchase and Vex is incredibly thankful for that, even if they do not do a lot of damage.

The goliath keeps taking a great amount of injury from the furious and in pain devil. Fire burns onto the grey skin, scorching it and a sickening smell permeates the air around them. Vex wants this to end, but she knows it won’t be that easy.

Vex’s next arrow finds purchase right as the great axe slashes through the devil’s chest. A handaxe flies by Vex and hits it square in the thigh. The wounded creature turns around, tail whipping at Grog, before pouncing in with one undamaged arm, missing the goliath entirely with the last two. 

They keep hammering at the creature, arrows and great axe wounds and additional mace wounds from a determined Pike hacking at its defenses and crushing its bones. Vex is sweating, she’s a little unfocused, and the screams of the goliath’s rage resounds in her head. 

When it finally falls down, it’s one of Vex’s arrows that lodges itself in its eyeball, deeply. It gurgles as it falls, twitching for a few seconds until it stops moving entirely. Vex exhales. She feels like the combat has lasted hours when it’s probably only been minutes. 

Pike rushes to her friend and heals him immediately, the burn and other wounds healing and disappearing from the grey flesh as Vex watches. A little unsteady, she finds somewhere to sit and to search. 

She waits for a while, searches for something she could have missed, but all fiendish presence is gone from the perimeter of her searching abilities. Relief floods through her system and she finally smiles. It was hard, but they did it. They killed the fiend. The Alabaster Sierras are safer now than they were before.

Vex’s entire body unravels suddenly, her shoulder slumping. They’re fine. She’s fine. They’re all alive and safe and the fiend is gone and she didn’t die killing it. She looks at Pike and Grog. They both look messy and fight-tousled. Vex imagines she looks like that too.

“Thank you,” she says. She means it. 

Grog smiles at her, a warm smile. He’s nice. Big and scary, but nice. “It was really fun.” He probably means it too. 

Pike nods. “It was!” 

Vex is a little more surprised at that, but she can’t help the grin that stretches over her mouth. They start walking again. Vex invites them for tea or coffee. They both ask for alcohol and she chuckles.

They settle around Vex’s table. The cabin feels a little cramped with the two of them. Vex manages to find three containers for the strong old whiskey that Regae left behind. They cheer and drink.

“I’m from Westrunn. The Everlight brought me here,” Pike says when Vex asks if she’s from Whitestone. 

“I’m from Westrunn too,” Grog smiles. “And I follow her.” There is unbridled affection in the way he looks over at Pike.

“My brother’s currently in Westrunn,” she points out. “Spending some time with his boyfriend.” 

Pike nods. “That’s sweet! I hope he enjoys the city. It’s a little quiet, but it’s a nice place.” 

Vex doesn’t say that she doesn’t expect Vax to do a lot of sight-seeing while with Gilmore. The three of them share some food, the rations they’d taken for a possible camping in the mountains, had the fiend evaded them for much longer.

The camaraderie wraps around her like a warm blanket and she finds herself laughing more than she has in years. When she herself starts to feel a light buzz from the alcohol she’s been very careful not to drink too much of, she shifts and prepares herself to start asking questions.

“Have you spent a lot of time here in Whitestone?” She asks after a moment.

“It’s our first time here, actually,” Pike smiles. “We usually stay in Westrunn, or travel south, not north. There is not much for us here.”

Vex raises an eyebrow. “What changed?” 

Pike shrugs. “As I said, the Everlight. I’m a cleric, and when my deity calls, I always answer.” 

Vex tries to figure out if that’s true, if Pike always answers to Sarenrae but the gnome is hard to read, her blue eyes staring right back into Vex’s as she speaks. There is a steadiness about her though. Something Vex usually senses in the druids and clerics and acolytes of this world, and also in some arcanists, who have faith in their studies the way others have faith in their gods.

Vex wonders how she feels to people. Is she steady with faith? Or is she chaotic and unstable? She wishes, in this moment, that she could see herself through someone else’s eyes. She wants to know what she is to others, so badly.

“What did the Everlight tell you to do here?” She continues. 

Pike’s eyes grow a little sharper for a moment, before she smiles again. “There is something for me to heal here. A soul yearning desperately for redemption. My goddess is the patron of healing and redemption, of second chances. This is what I am here for.” 

Vex swallows. “Would that be related to the De Rolo Massacre?” 

“Maybe,” the gnome shrugs. “Or maybe not. If we had all the details of what exactly our deities want us to do, all these divine quests wouldn’t be quite the challenges they are supposed to be.” 

That’s true, she guesses. Vex is definitely not faithful enough for this. She smiles anyway, leaning back against her chair. 

The gnome keeps talking. “Maybe the fiend we killed was that soul. Maybe someone we’ve crossed paths with in the street. Maybe it’s you.”

Vex freezes. 

“Many people would ask questions about someone like you deciding to live alone this way, in a cabin in the forest,” Pike shrugs. “It’s none of my business, of course. And I will never fault anyone for unconventional life choices.” She hums. “But you ask many questions.” 

Kind, warm, but very perceptive. Vex holds up her hands. “You got me,” she huffs. “Just trying to get answers about what’s going on in this city. No one will answer my questions.” She’s tired of it now. So fucking tired. “It was incredibly difficult to find people to help me with this fiend business because no one will talk to me about anything.” 

Pike reaches for her hand. “You are a stranger to these people, Vex’ahlia. Give them time to get to know you. For all they know, you have bad intentions. I come with the symbol of my goddess, and that opens some doors to me, and to Grog.” The goliath nods at the mention of his name. “You don’t have that. Unless you’re some deity’s chosen or champion… But you don’t seem like it.” 

Vex almost gets offended by that. But the gnome is right. Vex came into town with suspicious eyes. That’s not something people can trust.

“I’m sorry,” Vex sighs. “For the questions I’ve asked. You didn’t have to answer them.”

Pike shrugs. “I didn’t really mind. I’m here because I need to be. And Grog’s with me because he always is, and always will be.” She smiles at that. “You’re here for a reason too.” 

Vex huffs. “Right,” she shakes her head. “Did Sarenrae tell you that?” She asks sarcastically. 

“You’re not a believer,” Pike chuckles. “It kinda comes off of you like waves. That you don’t believe in anything.”

Vex lost her reason to believe when a dragon burnt her home village to the ground, taking her mother with it. Every snide remark from Syngornian elves, every time she had to fight for Saundor to do anything for her, those were all nails in the coffin of her faith, in gods or in people. 

“I think… I think you should start the way back to Whitestone. The road is long, and I don’t want you to get caught by the night. There are creatures.” 

Grog huffs. “We can take them on. You fought by our side, you have seen our power.” 

Vex doesn’t reply. Pike gets the memo. She gently pushes Grog into getting up. Vex walks them to the door and to the trail and bids them goodbye. 

She sits back down at the table. The cabin is small but it feels huge now that she’s alone. Sounds seem to reverberate now that it’s only her breathing, only her body. She wants to run off and tells those two kind people to come back, to stay, to not leave her alone like this. She doesn’t though. She exhales and she starts preparing for more work, and for a good night of sleep. 

Did she get any answer? No she didn’t. But at least she’s killed a fiend. The Alabaster Sierras are a bit safer than they were when she arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stealth Checks: Vex 25 (advantage because of favored terrain), Grog 7, Pike 1 (natural 1)
> 
> Combat: Initiative order: Vex (22), Grog (13), Pike (7) and then the creature (5)  
> Vex: 28 to hit, 8 damage (reduced to 4 by the resistance)  
> Grog: BA to rage, 10 to hit, misses  
> Pike: Guiding Bolt, 22 to hit, 20 damage  
> Barbed Devil: Multiattack: Claw 1, 15 to hit, misses, Claw 2, 25 to hit, 7 damage reduced to 3 by rage, Tail, 14 to hit, misses  
> Vex: Hunter’s Mark, Arrow attack: 11 to hit (advantage)  
> Grog: Great Axe attack: Natural 20 (26 to hit), Critical damage 14 (reduced to 7), Frenzy attack, 20 to hit, 16 damage (reduced to 8)  
> Pike: Sacred Flame, against dex save DC 15 (13, failed, despite advantage). 3 damage  
> Barbed Devil: Multiattack, Hurl Flames 1: 13 to hit, fails, Hurl Flames 2: natural 1. No damage because of immunity to fire damage.Vex: 14 to hit, misses  
> Grog: 25 to hit, 5 damage, 14 to hit, misses  
> Pike: Guiding Bolt, 21 t hit, 16 damage  
> Barbed Devil: 20 to hit, 9 damage reduced to 4, second attack: 10 to hit, misses  
> Vex: 27 to hit, 11 points damage + 5 Hunter’s Mark, reduced to 8  
> Grog: 18 to hit, 6 damage  
> Pike: 17 to hit, 4 damage (handaxe throw)  
> Barbed Devil: Tail, 24 to hit, 9 damage reduced to 4, Claws (11 and 14 to hit, both misses)  
> Vex: Longbow shot 28 to hit, 15 damage reduced to 7  
> Grog: 25 to hit, 7 damage  
> Pike: mace, 20 to hit, 5 damage  
> Barbed Devil: both attacks miss  
> Vex: 17 to hit, 12 damage, HDYWDT
> 
> Insight Check on Pike, 12  
> Persuasion Check on Pike, 15


	7. Motorcycle

Vax makes it to the cabin on a rainy afternoon. Vex is busy sketching out some areas she thinks need clearer trail markers and deciding where to implant emergency contact boxes, when she hears an engine running and a vehicle getting closer to the cabin.

She peeks from the window, her eyes catching the gleaming metal of her brother’s motorcycle. She immediately bolts from her seat at the table, startling a napping Trinket, and opens the door. She runs down the stairs and into her brother’s arms.

He’s just had time to take off his helmet, long dark hair held in a low ponytail for the road. She hugs him tightly, his leather motorcycle jacket smelling like hide and patchouli. She’s missed everything about him.

For a while, they stand there, hugging each other. There’s no one around and no use in pretending they don’t love each other right now. It’s been much too long. Vex remembers when a single day without him was torture. Now it’s usual. That saddens her somewhat.

“Welcome to Whitestone,” she grins. “How was the road?” 

“Dreadful,” Vax rolls his eyes and grabs his bag, letting go of her to start walking back into the cabin, away from the rain and the cold. “This place is… ghostly, really.” 

Vex huffs. “It’s not that bad, come on,” she mumbles. He’s right though. 

Whitestone, especially in the sort of rain that’s currently falling, is ghostly. White stone walls and overturned ship-like buildings, with people that stare at strangers like they’re time-ticking bombs… Ghostly. In the time she’s spent here, she’s only started seeing the shadows and the phantoms. 

“Is that the little munchkin you’ve called your Trinket?” Vax asks as Vex closes the door of the cabin after him.

He puts his back down next to the bed, heavy boots walking carefully towards Trinket. She’s put him in his crate so he would get used to Vax’s presence without threatening him, or himself. 

“Yup,” she nods. “He’s young, but… he could be a good companion,” she points out, her voice as innocent as possible. 

Vax looks up at her. “You’re taking on a companion?” He asks, with a raised eyebrow. He thought she never wanted to, especially after Saundor. That’s what she’s told him many times, after all. No companion, she’s not bringing something innocent into this, she’s better off being a hunter. Alone and fixated on one enemy. Dragons were her original choice. Fey her second. She doesn’t want the permanence of companionship… At least she didn’t. Before Trinket.

“I’m not sure yet,” Vex shrugs, trying to escape his gaze. “But… I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and he’s perfect. He’s going to grow big and strong, and protective. And he’s… I’ve grown attached to him.” 

Vax shrugs off his jacket and sits down at one of the chairs, looking around the cabin. His eyes glide across the small kitchen, the bed, the fireplace, the ladder up to the lookout and the door to the bathroom. He hums. 

“This is… cozy,” he points out. 

Vex chuckles. “Very different where you spent the last few days, I imagine?” She asks teasingly. 

“You’re a ranger, not a sorcerer with an amazing business,” Vax points out. “I am not expecting the same thing.” He shrugs. “Besides, this is nice. Warm and comfortable.” 

His eyes fall on her again and she feels the scrutiny in them. She can’t hide a single thing from him. She was never able to.

“You look… tired, but good,” he says after a moment. “I’m guessing you resolved a problem, recently? You have that… satisfied smug look on you. But not the one from right after it. The couple-days-old one.” 

Vex rolls her eyes at him but doesn’t deny it. It’s not worth the trouble. “We had a barbed devil. Killed one for sure, the ranger here before me. Probably more. I had sensed it a while ago, but… I had trouble finding help.”

Vax raises an eyebrow and Vex proceeds to give him the rundown on everything that has happened, on the people of Whitestone and their lack of wanting to talk to her, on Pike and Grog. 

“Gilmore tried to contact the local rulers to get a teleportation circle added to the city,” Vax explains once she’s done. “He didn’t manage to find anyone. There are no rulers in Whitestone, as far as anyone knows.” 

“It seems they all died in a horrific massacre a few years ago. It’s impossible to get anyone to give me details about it,” Vex shrugs. “But why is Gilmore that interested in Whitestone? There’s nothing for him here.” 

Vax chuckles, crossing his legs. “You live here. I like to come and see you.” His smirk is telling. 

Vex chuckles back. “I see… He loves to dote on you, doesn’t he?” 

“What can I say?” Vax shrugs. “I deserve it.” 

Vex absolutely agrees with that. She appreciates Gilmore for many things, but the most important is how he treats her brother. He might be the very first person to take care of Vax the way he deserves, to spoil him. And he’s the first person that Vax doesn’t stop from spoiling him. 

He’s had powerful lovers before, in Syngorn or in other places. Vax is handsome and charming in his own grumpy way, and Vex knows first-hand how sometimes, the disgust Syngornians showed towards the two of them could easily turn into sexual curiosity. But Gilmore doesn’t want Vax because he’s a dirty half-human. And that changes everything, including Vex’s appreciation of the man.

“You sure do, brother,” Vex hums and turns to pour them both a cup of coffee. “I’m afraid there isn’t much for you to do here. You can potentially make nice with the people in town and snoop for me?” She asks. 

“Is that why you asked me to come?” he answers. “To spy for you the information you can’t get?” 

“I asked you here because I missed you,” Vex stares at him. “And I don’t like being away from you for too long. But if you can… Ask a few questions while you’re here, I’d appreciate it greatly.” 

“Fine,” Vax shrugs. “But first, I need a lay of the land. Any information you haven’t given me yet. And an idea of whether some of the wealth around here could be redistributed to the people. No rulers means there’s probably chests of gold and jewels some of these folks could use.” 

“Two temples. The one of Pelor is in the cemetery, outside of town. They don’t seem to have anything you’d want, but they might have some ideas of who the richest families used to be. I saw some pretty impressive mausoleums around there,” Vex starts. “The second one is in town. Temple to Erathis. I’ve heard about some empty noble houses, and there’s the castle, but it’s been years. I think all of the possible left behind wealth was promptly redistributed already.” 

Vax raises an eyebrow, but says nothing, deep in thought.

They stay like this for a moment until Vex huffs and stands up. “Come on,” she smiles. “Let’s go into town and get some supplies. They’re announcing snow later this week and we need enough to be able to survive out here for a while.” 

Vax rolls his eyes but stands up, grabbing his coat. Vex gets ready to go as well, thick coat, quiver and bow and the keys to the truck. She pets Trinket goodbye and they get into the truck, starting the drive down.

The heating is on in the cabin of the car and Vax waits about two minutes before turning on the radio. He hums under his breath the pop songs that blast out of the speaker, letting go of his grumpy goth image for once. She’ll never tell anyone that he knows the lyrics to Brit Nayspears’ entire discography.

She points out some trails as they drive past, things that have been causing her issues, the campsite that will hold the local wilderness survival adventure once summer comes around. Winter months are much calmer for rangers than summer ones are, but she’s still looking forward to seeing what the sun looks like reflected off of the Alabaster Sierras peaks.

Vax seems interested. He always does. He listens to her and that’s one of the best things about him. They end up dueting over some song on the radio, at first only humming and mumbling the words. By the time they drive through the city gates, they are scream-singing. Vex can’t stop smiling.

The cold bites as they slam the doors shut and walk away from the previously heated cabin of the truck. They’re not the only ones out for supplies. There are other trucks with crates and bags in the parking lot.

The covered market stands two blocks from the parking lot. Its roof is like an enormous overturned ship and white stones rise from the ground to meet the wood, providing a tall and breathable marketplace underneath. It’s cold still, there’s no use in trying to heat the entire volume of the building. It would only waste spell and components, or wood if they were trying to do it magicless. 

They start going through the stalls, grabbing a lot of root vegetables and things that will not perish too fast. If they’re stuck in the snow, Vex is hoping to have a few days of fresh and non-canned food before they have to resort to the cans, but she knows it’s not that easy. 

For the meat, she’ll go hunting. There’s no need to bother herself with purchasing beef or anything of that nature. Her freezer can hold at least one deer carcass. She’s measured it. It’s not really a surprise, anyway. The cabin was built as a safe haven for long winters and snow falls. There’s a couple of emergency mattresses rolled up under her bed, enough to allow a couple of people to sleep, albeit uncomfortably, if they’re stuck with her during a storm. It’s a refuge. And a refuge can hold at least one deer carcass.

“Do I really have to carry all of this?” Vax whines as she places a small cart over his arms. 

“If you weren’t here, I’d need half of this. So you’re gonna pull your weight,” Vex shrugs. 

Vax rolls his eyes. “You  _ invited  _ me, remember?” He calls out as she walks over to get some more potatoes. Neither of them really mean the bickering, but it feels good to do it.

There’s a light chuckle behind him and he turns around, trying not to spill over the contents of the carts he’s carrying. A few feet from him stands a young person with dark brown hair that shifts to white streaks around the temple. They’re watching him with quiet amusement.

“Older sibling?” They ask with a smile and a raised eyebrow. They look tired, and the smile is a little shaky. 

“Twin, actually,” Vax replies. “She’s the ranger for the Alabaster Sierras outpost. I’m visiting,” he explains quickly. “Vax’ildan. Would shake your hand but…” 

They nod. “Your hands are busy, I get it. I’m Cassandra. Whitestone native. And I know what siblings can be like.” Their eyes are sad. 

Vax tries to keep an inviting and smiling face, but it’s not exactly natural to him. He’s not used to this. Out of the two of them, Vex is the charming and open one. She’s the one that gets information, food, good prices and extra help from strangers. 

“So you’re the person to ask if I want to know what to do around here in the winter months?” He asks, trying to add a bit of a flirty undertone to his voice.

Cassandra chuckles. “I don’t know. I’m not really a tourist guide, but… The trails can be fun in winter if you’re into cold hikes. Your sister can probably be more helpful than me for this,” they point out. The flirting does not seem to be landing.

“You’re probably right,” Vax shrugs. “I was just… I did some research before coming here, but there’s so little information about this town online…” He explains. “There’s a website, but it hasn’t been updated in what? Five years?” 

He’s not lying. The only updated information comes from the TWC website that he knows Vex is somewhat responsible for keeping up to date. The rest is at least five years old. It’s as if the town has stopped evolving and living since then.

Cassandra stiffens slightly. “That’s weird,” they mutter. For some reason, Vax doesn’t believe that it is very weird to them. 

“Is there anyone to talk to about that? Like a heritage association or a city council or something?” Vax is trying to fish for information, and hopefully it’s not too obvious.

“No,” Cassandra shakes their head. “There’s no one like that. Whitestone is not… This is not a good city for mass tourism, it’s not a good city for outsiders.” Their jaw is set. “You won’t find anyone to help you, and I’m sorry. But that’s just how it’s been for the last few years.” 

“Since the massacre, right? The De Rolo massacre?” Vax pushes a little. “Vex, my sister, told me about it.” 

Those words make something ripple underneath Cassandra’s dark eyes, pain and sadness and many other emotions that make Vax feel like he’s just kicked a hornet’s nest. If they were closed off to talking before, they’re now screwed shut, lips tight, ready to flee. And flee they do.

Cassandra takes a step back, shoving their hands into the pockets of their blue coat with uncomfortable determination. It all screams of a deep desire to escape. “Listen, I have to go. It was nice to meet you, Vax’ildan. Good luck with your stay in Whitestone.” They say before sliding away in a hurry. 

Vax doesn’t go after them. There’s one thing he knows, and that’s not to run after people who are trying to escape you. He’s been through enough situations where the roles were reversed, and he doesn’t want to be a threat. He’s here to be a charming, smiling person, to get information from people for Vex.

And fuck. He just failed miserably at his first attempt. That entire interaction was a mess and Vax really thought he would be better than this. But Vex wasn’t exaggerating when she talked about the closed offness of the inhabitants of Whitestone. And maybe he'd overestimated his own charming abilities.

Vex comes back eventually, raising an eyebrow at his slightly frustrated face. “Something happened?” She asks curiously.

“I was talking to this person. Cassandra, they said? Dark hair, white streaks around the temples,” he describes.

“I’ve seen them a couple of times before, around some of the temples,” Vex points out. “The one time we talked, they seemed to be in a hurry.” 

So that’s a common attitude then, not just something he’s caused. That’s a little bit of a consolation. He recounts the conversation to Vex as they start walking out of the covered market to put their haul into the back of the truck. They have a couple more things to do in town. 

Snow starts falling lightly while they’re on the drive back. Vax takes the time to call Gilmore for a few minutes, unsure of whether his cell will have service back at the cabin if there’s snow covering the Alabaster Sierras.

Vex keeps her eyes open the entire trip through town for red hair and antlers. She worries about Keyleth. If she was close to the fiend, as Vex suspected, she is probably not doing good at the moment. She doesn’t know exactly the depths of enthrallment, and how far it changes someone to care for fiends. She hopes it’s not deep enough that the druid is now broken with grief.

But she is nowhere to be seen. Vax hangs up on Gilmore as they turn off of the biggest road and up the mud path that leads to the cabin. There’s a good ten minutes of drive left, maybe even more with the growing wetness of the ground. They’re going to be very thankful for both the fire and the supplies. Vex is glad she decided to go today.

“So what do you think of Whitestone, now that you’ve experienced some of it?” She asks, eyes darting for barely a second to Vax on the passenger seat. He’s looking at the snow like its falling is a personal offence.

“The people are… lovely,” he starts. “But there’s something not quite right in the air. I…” He looks over at her for a moment before looking away. “I admit I thought you were a little paranoid when you were telling me about it.”

Vex’s jaw tightens and she nods slightly, a controlled, small motion.

“You don’t have a great track record at being alone in the woods,” he points out. “You’re doing much better than the last time though. And I can see what you meant, about the heaviness hanging over the city. About the unsaid horrors. That… de Rolo massacre story. That Cassandra person looked quite spooked.” 

Vax breathes out as the cabin comes into view at the end of the path. “I’m gonna stay for a little while, if you don’t mind. I don’t like leaving you alone like this, especially with this whole mystery.” 

Anger lurches in Vex’s chest for a second, her vision tunnelling, her hands tightening their grip on the wheel. She can handle herself. She doesn’t need Vax to save her again, she’s not going to make the same mistake again. For a moment, it’s all she can think. How dare he come to her rescue again when she doesn’t need him?

But she does need him. Not to save her. But she needs him around. She doesn’t do great without him, they’re a team in all the ways that matter. Having him here right now is the best she’s felt since she arrived. It’s hard for her to reconcile with that anger at his worry but… 

She gives him a small smile. “It’ll be nice. Close-quartered but nice.” She nods and parks the truck in front of the cabin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vax Deception Check 10 against Cassandra’s Passive Insight of 12
> 
> Question, are any of you interesting in the character sheets I use for the main characters?


	8. Burned Bridges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some nice person on the internet called Theodore Weinert! they have this whole set of designs of Critical Role locations as national parks logos and they are awesome!  
> Here's their tumblr: https://der-kazenprinze.tumblr.com if you guys want to see them!
> 
> Are you interested in the character sheets I use for rolling? if so, I could link them next time!
> 
> WARNING: Breakdowns, rejection and a LOT of hard emotional times this chapter

Snow falls almost continuously for the next day or so, covering the forest and the mountains in blinding white. Every time Vex goes onto the look-out post over the cabin, may it be to clear the path for eventual work or to actually check on her surroundings, she finds herself unable to tell white stone from snow.

Her eyes meet an endless ocean of white, she’s forced to wear sunglasses when the rays bounce off of the snow and ice and blind anyone trying to watch the surrounding nature. It’s breathtaking.

She spends as long as she can on the lookout post, sometimes alone or sometimes with Vax. The endless white makes her feel incredibly small. When she’s alone, the only thing across the valley from her is the castle, in its white glory. It doesn’t loom the way it does when it rains. It stands, proud and tall.

Whitestone exhales in winter. It chases away the heaviness. The sky is bluer right now than she’s ever seen it here. Syngorn doesn’t get this beautiful in winter, it gets drab and wet and disagreeable. Whitestone thrives in the snow. Vex finds herself exhaling with it, breathing hard and free in the cold.

It’s exhilarating, the way the air almost hurts when you breathe it. She wants to stay here forever. 

She’s spent a few early morning hours watching the sunrise on the lookout post, black sky turning to gorgeous colors and the winter sun making the white come to life suddenly. It goes from darkness to light so fast it’s almost dizzying. But she can’t stand forever watching. She’s getting a little too frozen for comfort, and she has other things to do.

She climbs down the almost frozen ladder, careful of where she steps and how she grabs. She makes it back down with no issue. The warmth of the cabin envelops her as she steps into it. It stings her fingers and feet a little as warmth and blood comes rushing back in. She busies herself making coffee in the morning, puts the aluminum pot on the stove.

Vax is still asleep, curled up on himself a little. His hair has gotten free of the tie at some point during the night and it’s going to be a bitch to entangle. She can already hear his whines as she brushes out the tangles. He’s always been sensitive when it comes to his scalp. It would be easier if he cut his hair, really, but he will probably kill her before he does that.

Like this, with his hair covering his ears, he looks almost full-blooded. Vex swallows. 

She hates those thoughts. They’re not hers. They’re the ones of the Syngornian elves. They’re the echoes of their comments, of their looks, of their whispers. They’re the memories of their father’s very words when they first arrived. He’d watched them so critically, observed their ears and their hair and their faces, searching for where the human ended and where the elf began. He hadn’t found what he’d wanted, of course.

The disappointment and contempt in his eyes at the moment he’d realized that they would never be mistaken for anything other than what they were is carved into her mind forever. 

Maybe that’s one of the reasons Vax never wanted to cut his hair. 

No, that couldn’t be it. Vax isn’t her. He was somehow much stronger than she was when it came to their father and Syngorn. He hated them, was clear about it and had given up on their approval years ago. Now he just lives his life and flips them off both literally and figuratively every single day.

Vex isn’t the same. She never could shake the desire to make Syldor Vessar proud. She never could shake the desire to be part of Syngorn, of its society, of the culture. Still now, it comes to her sometimes, the question of whether he cares about what she’s doing. Whether he’s proud of her. 

She knows he isn’t. She’s not a full-blooded daughter, she’s not part of Syngornian society, she didn’t take to the education he tried to give her. She was supposed to become part of the courts, to look and act noble-born. She wasn’t supposed to sneak out of the house at night to go run in the woods for hours, sometimes even days. She still could dance well, she could cast a couple of spells, could carve woods and care for leather and saw if needed, she knew how to put her hair up the most appropriate way, knew how to apply makeup in fashion, but she wasn’t noble in any way. She wasn’t a good daughter.

She admits it has gotten easier since Velora, his new daughter, their half-sister, came along. She’s now the full-blooded perfect daughter. There’s no expectation on Vex and Vax anymore, just sighs and demands of good behavior, of not tainting the Vessar name further, as if they were responsible for their own existence, as if he wasn’t the one who conceived them. But Vex doesn’t feel any better.

She feels worse actually. Being discarded can be worse than being a disappointment. When they set fire to the Shademurk Bog and she couldn’t leave her own room for days, terrified and in pain, wounded in more ways than one, all he did was barge into the room and yell at her for endangering an important alliance with the Fey. In that moment, she realized she didn’t matter to anyone anymore but Vax.

And it still hurts, a slowly pulsing, forever seeping, ugly wound, that remains even when the ones Saundor had gifted her with are healing. She knows she’s stupid to care so much about a man that never loved her. But what else is she supposed to do?

The coffee pot starts gurgling and she turns back to it. Vax stirs in the bed, warm and almost soft this early in the morning, when thoughts and memories have yet to come to his mind. Vex busies herself with eggs and bread as he sits up groggily. 

“Early riser,” he mumbles. “How long have you…”

“A couple of hours,” Vex shrugs and grabs two of the metal plates and puts them on the table, next to two mugs for coffee. “Did some work and made you breakfast.” She reaches to flip the toast over on the pan. It takes a lot of attention to toast bread that way. She enjoys it though. 

Vax huffs and gets out of bed, stretching a little and walking over to the table and the food she’s now putting there. 

“What’s the program for today?” He asks, as he reaches for his bag. 

Vex follows his arm and raises an eyebrow. “Hmm… We should probably hunt while the weather is pleasant. It could start snowing and just not stop for a while and finding meat then will be a struggle.” She points out.

Vax ruffles through his bag before he takes out a couple of little pouches and a glass vial. The spices and vinegar Vex requested. 

“Well that sounds fun. Do you want me to come?” He puts the spices on the table with a smile towards her.

“I’m probably going to need some extra hands to get it back,” she points out. “Unless you want to wait for my text and then come get me, you should probably come along. Besides, some time in nature will do you good.” 

Vax puts on a falsely offended hair, hand going from the coffee-filled mug to clutching his chest. “That feels like an insult, stubby.” 

Vex reaches over and taps his cheek slightly. “You’re pale. You spend too much time in city shadows.” She shrugs. “They won’t recognize you when you go back home. All tan and full of winter air.” 

Vax nods quietly, looking down at the mug. He’s usually not that quiet when she mentions his lifestyle, especially disapprovingly. Something’s up, she can tell. He leans back a little, still staring at his cup. The coffee is steaming hot, and he seems to be fixated on the patterns the steam is making in the air between them. 

She leaves him in the silence for a moment. Vax doesn’t like when people push for information, even her. And she had toast to watch. She finishes watching the toast right when the eggs on the other pan are done. 

She piles the toast on a plate and turns around with the pan to put the eggs in their plates. Vax has shifted slightly, a hand up to his face, fingers against his brow bones. He looks preoccupied by whatever it is that’s not making him snap back at her.

When she finally sits down, he exhales and looks up at her. 

“I can’t go home,” he says quietly. “Not to Syngorn.” 

Vex frowns a little, leaning away from her chair a little bit. “Did something happen?” 

Vax looks away from her, swallowing. She doesn’t like this at all. Bitter dread starts pooling in her stomach.

“Father doesn’t want either of us around Velora,” he says after a moment. “He’s made sure we weren’t welcome home anymore. We won’t be able to make it through the door of the house. And…” He stops, sighing. “I think he made sure the people I usually hang with would push me away too.”

Vex sits shell-shocked in her chair. The eggs and toast and coffee are all growing cold, but so is her heart, right now. 

She should have expected it. She should have known. When she left for Whitestone, she’d made sure to let Velora know that she didn’t have to be what he wanted her to be. That she could run and fall and come back home with bloody knees. That she could punch anyone who bothered her, no matter how highborn. That she didn’t need to be a perfect elven daughter. Syldor had been furious. He’d basically slammed the door behind her.

Vax takes a piece of paper out of his pocket and slides it over the table. It’s cut roughly and the words on it are messy. Elvish.  _ Don’t come back _ . It’s not their father’s handwriting, nor is it Devana’s, his wife. She guesses from Vax’s pained eyes that it’s from one of his so-called friends. 

“What are you going to do?” She asks after a moment. “Do you still have things there?” 

Vax shakes his head. “Nothing important. All I have is here, right now.” He points his chin towards the bag next to the bed. It’s small. “There’s some of your things too,” he points out. “I thought you’d want them here… I didn’t know then we wouldn’t be back.” 

Vex’s head is spinning. A second piece of paper is put on the table. This time, the paper is beautiful, the handwriting perfect, and it’s signed by Syldor himself. Her eyes skim over it. The gist of it is the same as the other paper. The house next to the tower, the deep green velvet of the bed canopy. 

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she asks. She wishes she didn’t sound as remorseful as she does. 

“You seemed happy,” Vax shrugs. “I didn’t want to ruin that.” 

Fuck, they’re alone now. Truly alone. Their mother is dead, their father wishes they were dead, they have no one and they have nothing and they don’t have a home. Tears burn as they rise in her eyes, as she tries to shove them down. 

“I’m gonna stay here a little,” Vax continues. “And then I’m going to go to Westruun and stay with Gilmore until…” 

Until what? Until he changes his mind? Until she stops wanting to stay in Whitestone? Until they grab a map, close their eyes, drop a coin and see where it lands, where they decide home will be? 

“We’ll be fine,” she whispers, but she doesn’t believe it. 

Why did he have to overhear her telling Velora to be rebellious? Why couldn’t she shut her fucking mouth and not try and bring Velora into the terrible path she’s on? Why couldn’t she be the daughter Syldor wanted? She hadn’t tried hard enough, and now, now it was too late.

She’s never good enough for anyone. 

There’s a nudge against her leg. She looks down and sees Trinket. He’s making little noises, obviously aware of her distress, but she hasn’t heard them. She hasn’t heard a thing. The egg looks cold and congealed now.

She swallows. “I need to go and get meat for Trinket and us,” she says after a moment. “I need… to go and think.” She points out. “Maybe you shouldn’t come.” 

Suddenly, they’re back to being teenagers, grieving and angry. All that Vex wants to do is go and run through the woods until she forgets where she’s from, until she forgets the weight of who she has to be. And Vax nods, the way he did fifteen years ago. 

“I think I’ll go to the city again,” he says quietly. “Walk around.” 

The same thing he’d do when they were teenagers. He’d stay in Syngorn, sneak around on the rooftops while Vex ran. At the end of the day, they haven’t changed. They’re 28, and yet they’re still the same broken-hearted thirteen year olds that ran out of Syldor’s house that first time.

Vex nods quietly. She stands and reaches for her quiver, strapping it to her thigh. She gets everything else ready, bundling herself up for the oncoming hunt in the cold. As her fingers close around her usual bow, her mind drifts to Fenthras, still hidden under her bed. She shoves the thought away. She’s not worthy of that weapon. 

The door of the cabin slams in the silence. She’s greeted by blinding snow. Her instincts yell at her to run and she does. 

She takes off running the second she passes the first ring of trees around the clearing. Her lungs burn with exhaustion as well as the icy air. The snow crutches underneath her feet. She runs for a while, until she feels like she’s miles away from the cabin. Her foot catches on a hidden branch and she tumbles down, knees and hands hitting the packed snow.

Her pants are wet and cold and her wrists and knees hurt from the impact but she stays there. She wants to scream and she wants to cry and suddenly, she’s 13 again. She’s 13 and howling at the moon because her mother is dead, her father hates her, and the only person that loves her is as broken as she is. 

The moon is not out, it’s the middle of the morning and the sun is shining, but still she howls. Her ears ring with the strength of her own screams. If anyone hears her, they’ll think she’s a wounded animal. It’s fitting. 

She’s a wounded animal, hands and knees in the snow, knees numb, face burning with a thousand needles and she screams. Her body is wracked with sobs and screams, she wants to break, she wants to sleep. She’s so tired. She’s so mad. She punches at wet cold snow. It’s packed dense and it hurts her fist as she rages.

She’s ridiculous, isn’t she? She’s an adult woman, and she’s sobbing now because her father won’t love her. Fuck. She wishes her hands were claws in the snow. It’s all so white. She wishes she could stop thinking. 

It’s too cold to be out there on the ground, crying. This is ridiculous. Her hands are getting numb, and so are her feet. She lets herself fall into the snow, curls up on herself. She’s still shaking and crying, but she’s not screaming anymore. She’s too tired. 

Her sobs eventually quiet, her body stops shaking. She’s just breathing now, harder than before, out of breath from her crisis. She’s cold. The snow has wetted her clothing and the parts of her body not covered by several layers are damp. Her hair is wet too, after she’s just spent gods know how many minutes curled up in the snow. 

She doesn’t have any other option than to get up, hunt, and go back to the cabin. And then… She doesn’t know. As long as she can keep her post here in Whitestone, she has somewhere to be. She has a house, she has an income, she has a purpose. As long as she doesn’t find herself in a situation here, she’ll be fine.

Nothing like Saundor can happen again. She doesn’t have Syngorn to go back to anymore, in case something happens. There’s no more emergency exit. This is all she has. She exhales. Fuck. She doesn’t have anywhere to run to.

Gilmore’s nice, but she doesn’t belong there. That’s Vax’s emergency exit. She’ll only take space. 

She just needs to be very good at her job. She needs to be indispensable to Whitestone and to the Alabaster Sierras park. She needs to stop making waves and asking questions. She’ll settle there, do her work, and let everyone forget that she’s anything but useful and discreet. 

Vex exhales, closing her eyes and trying to calm herself down. Her heart is still pounding in her chest. She needs to shove down the hurt and anger at her father, the panic when she thinks of having to leave Whitestone. She needs to focus on her job. 

She forces herself to center, to melt into her primeval sensing abilities. She needs to do her job right. 

It’s far from as smooth as the last time. She doesn’t let herself breathe her awareness through her pores, instead, she throws it out of herself in rage, still a little shaky from her crisis. She pushes it out of her skull, out of her body, like she doesn’t want anything to do with it. Her mind tangles with the forest and digs into it, searching, hungry, a predator.

A howling monster of a mind shoves itself through the forest, in search of prey. There’s no fey. Relief floods into her, despite herself. She didn’t think he was a big player in her current state, but isn’t he always? Hasn’t he been a player of her crisis for the past five years?

She tastes ash again. Fiend.  _ No.  _

She failed. She fucking failed. There were more than one and she missed one. It’s there, it’s violent and it makes her want to scream again. 

She snaps back into her body and hits the ground again. Fuck. She failed in the one job she had to do. She’s useless here, isn’t she? She’s useless everywhere, after all. To everyone. 

No. Fuck that. Fuck the fiend. Fuck Syldor Vessar and fuck Saundor. Fuck everyone. 

She grabs her bow and starts running again, in the general direction of where she sensed the fiend. 

She’s out there for what feels like hours, running, hunting. She’s hungry now, exhausted. She’s a little in pain too, and she doesn’t have time for that. She emerges out of the woods and onto a path that she immediately recognizes. She looks up. 

Above her stands the blindingly white architecture of Castle Whistestone. She’s on Keyleth’s trail, where she originally found the fiend. 

She focuses again. It’s much closer now, and it seems to be straight ahead of her. Except ahead of her is the stone of the rock formation on which the castle was built. There’s nothing there. How can the fiend be in there? 

Vex’s eyes scan over the rock, searching for something, anything that will make sense. She’s desperate. She wants to succeed in something, one thing. She wants to find the fiend and kill it. She needs to.

The rock seems to be looser than the rest, smaller rocks shoved one on top of the other in a way that is unlike the rest of the stone around her. There’s a couple bushes in front of it, probably trying to mask the inconsistency. Except in between the two is a space for one thin half-elf druid to go through. 

The issue with visiting the same spot every month and being the only one known to use that path is that it’s obvious to see where you disturbed the natural arrangement of wilderness. Vex knows Keyleth went through there. She knows her fiend is close. There’s no other explanation. Keyleth wasn’t smart enough to fool her.

She manages to move some rocks out of the way, though it takes her a while. She’s determined, and time is nothing important to her right now. She’s solely focused on finding what the fuck Keyleth has been hiding from her.

A tunnel opens in front of her. She takes a step forward. There’s not going back now, isn’t it? She waits for a second as her eyes adjust to the darkness. 

The ground seems dry, preserved from the weather. A few feet further in, Vex can spot the remains of a small fire. Someone has camped here. She swallows. It doesn’t seem very used. There are some footsteps in the dust and dirt. Vex swallows. Maybe… maybe she should go get Vax. She isn’t far inside and she might need back-up. 

But she doesn’t want him to rescue her again. She needs to be useful, by herself. He’s not always going to be by her side in battle, and she needs to do it by herself. She doesn’t want him there. She’s not a damsel, fuck. She’s strong. 

She starts walking down the tunnel. It isn’t very long. A few hundred feet at most. The minimal light from outside quickly disappears however, and Vex finds herself walking in the dark. With a quick motion and whisper, she casts Pass Without a Trace. She’s going to surprise that monster. 

She eventually reaches a partially crumbled wall, about a foot thick. A large statue has been moved away from the crumbled part. It had probably been used to hide the hole. This is not just a tunnel, this is a secret tunnel, on many levels. Vex looks back behind herself. She can’t see the entrance anymore.

She walks through the hole and into a storage room. Once again, it’s full of dust, with a single path going from the hole in the wall to the door. Whoever is going through this passage - and she guesses it’s Keyleth - doesn’t stop to check the dust-covered crates stacked into the room. 

The door itself is closed, but it doesn’t hold to Vex’s skills. She’s learned to pick locks from Vax, and she’s become pretty good at it over the years. The lock clicks as it turns, and she takes a deep breath before opening it.

The room is plunged into darkness. It’s much larger than the storage room, divided into two paths, one going on the right and the other on the left of a central section. She sneaks in closer and she sees metal bars and the glint of chains. It’s a dungeon. 

Vex’s breath itches. She shouldn’t be here alone. Fuck, what is she doing? She takes a step back. She’s being stupid. Her fucking pride and her fucking issues are getting in the way. This is not what being useful looks like. She turns around and starts walking back to the door when a light hissing sound reaches her ears.

She was supposed to be stealthy. Fuck, this is where she dies, isn’t it? 

She turns around, quietly. Better to be seeing whatever is behind her. She’s supposed to be the one taking monsters by surprise, not the other way around.

A light turns on, deeper in, and flickers. Shadows pool over the floor, waves upon waves of dark smoke. It almost seems to stick to the stone of the walls. It overwhelms the space of the corridor, coming towards Vex. She should be running. Why is she frozen in place?

Footsteps hit the stone floor. They’re light, but Vex has sharp senses. Even with the light hissing of the dark smoke, she can hear those steps getting closer. Two feet, unless some are more silent. 

They come out of the smoke like a nightmare. They’re tall and pale, surrounded in black, the smoke seeping out of their nostrils and mouth and eyes, of their hands. It pours out of them, sick and brutal and hissing at her.

A humanoid, with pale hair and glasses and one eye blue and one eye black. Something ugly twists inside of them as they twitch, head tilting to stare at her. The blue eye blinks but not the other one. It’s a deranged sort of wink.

“Well, hello, there. Who are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rolls for this chapter
> 
> Athletics Check for Vex, 17  
> DEX save, 8 (Nat 1)  
> Primeval Awareness, used twice  
> Perception Check, 17  
> STR check 14  
> Survival Check, 15  
> DEX check to open the door, 18  
> Stealth Check: 19 (+10 pass without a trace)  
> Roll for Percy/Orthax Control: 1d6, 4  
> Percy: Perception check, 20


	9. One eye blue, One black

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some blood in this chapter!

“Well, hello, there. Who are you?” 

The question is asked in two voices, one humanoid enough and the other dark and deep and fiendish. It resounds around her as if the room is much bigger than it actually is.

Vex can’t breathe. She’s made the biggest mistake of her life, and she’s going to die. This is the fiend, it has to be. The barbed devil from before seems ridiculously small and weak. It took seconds to bring it down, even if it was three against one. This one though? There’s no way Vex is coming out of here alive, if they start to fight. 

Their arms are to their side, one of their hands resting on something on a belt around their hips. Sword hilt? She can’t think about what else it could be. 

The door behind her is open, so there is somewhere for her to go. She could try to book it and run but she doubts she’ll be able to make it back out, unless there’s some sort of magical field keeping the fiend inside. She might make it to the tunnel. 

Vex tries to make out what the creature’s shoes are, hoping desperately that they would make it hard for them to run after her but the smoke billowing on the ground makes it hard to see. The edges of the smoke are starting to reach Vex’s feet, too. She doesn’t want to find out what will happen if they start wrapping around her legs. She takes a step back.

“You came into my home, the least you could do is tell me your name,” they continue, taking a step forward, keeping the distance between them equal.

The unilateral blinking is unnerving. Vex has never seen something like this. She doesn’t remember learning about it in any class she’s taken either. It’s deeply wrong, but she can’t tell what’s happening, or what it is.

She doesn’t want to give them her name. Names have power, she knows that. She’s learned that. Staying silent isn’t a great option either. 

“Wade,” she blurts out. She has no idea where it comes from, but it seems to work. Maybe she has a little bit of luck. Hopefully, she hasn’t burned it all on lying about her name. 

“Wade…” The creature shifts a little, hand tilting to the other side, as they repeat the name she’s given them. “What brings you to me, today? You look… emotional.” 

They would be emotional if they were in front of something like this fiend. A bit of rage rises inside of her. How dare they call her emotional? But she swallows it down. It’s not the fucking time. She can’t let her emotions ruin this for her too.

The clothing on them is beautiful, though old. It has seen wear without care for a while. The blue color is faded and the gold thread is scuffed, dulled. They look like a strange, faded version of a noble. 

If they're noble, and standing in the basement dungeon of Castle Whitestone, there’s not a hundred different options on who they could be. 

“Are you a De Rolo?” She asks bluntly. 

A ripple of emotions erupts on the right side of the creature’s face, the side where the eye is blue. They seem relieved at first, then sad. Then worried. It's a rollercoaster on one side of the face. Once again, it feels wrong to Vex. 

It does give her incentive to keep talking though. 

“You have the clothing of a noble, but it’s old. And there haven’t been nobles in Whitestone for years,” she points out. “You have to be one of them.” 

She wishes she’d researched them more, right now. If she knew their names, she could try to guess which one they were, she could try to appeal to their past to an extent. But she doesn’t know. All she knows is that this thing might be a de Rolo. Were they a fiend all along? Had they snapped and killed the entire family in one go after posing as one of them for so long?

Long enough to look like a twenty-year-old human. Vex is almost impressed. That sure was a long con. She wouldn’t have been able to handle pretending to be someone else for decades. She’d tried that for a couple of years as a teenager and it hadn’t worked. 

“Are you from Whitestone, Wade?” De Rolo starts again. They don’t answer anything to Vex’s comments, but she’s seen enough. They shift and lean forward, taking a deep, loud inhale. “You don’t smell like the city. Like the dust and rot of this godsforsaken ugly little town. You…” They inhale again deeply. “You smell like woods. Like wild magic. Like Fey… it’s faded but it’s there, Wade. Why do you smell like Fey, when you’re obviously not one?” 

Vex feels nauseous suddenly. She smells like fey. It has to be Saundor’s influence, still stuck in her, on her. His magic, his energy, his essence, wrapped around her and smothering hers still. It’s been seven fucking months. How long until she’s free? How many baths until she stops smelling like him?

The creature smirks. “See? It’s fun when someone reminds you of a painful past, isn’t it, little  _ othlir _ ?” 

Vex takes another step back. She tries to reassure herself that they don’t know her, the term othlir is commonly used enough by full-blooded elves that it would make sense she’d been referred to by it once. It doesn’t have to mean they know her. 

She raises her hands. “I don’t want to fight you,” she says. Her voice manages to be unwavering. “I will not tell anyone you’re here. I just want to leave.” 

She wants to run home to Vax and never leave. She wants to stay alive. She wants to run from those words and the knowledge this thing seems to have. She wants to go and scrub Saundor off her once again. At least she doesn’t have to be careful of her burns anymore. They’ve healed months ago.

The creature’s mouth shifts as they smirk at her. It’s distorted and, once again, wrong. Vex’s hair rises on the back of her neck. They look predatory. And she’s the prey. She takes another step back. The creature follows, not letting her put distance between them. 

She’s reaching for her bow when something changes. The black eye flickers, the darkness filling it seems to be shoved away and it turns to the same blue the other one is. The creature hisses loudly, bending on themselves. Something’s happening to them. 

“RUN!” The voice is broken and desperate, but lacking the darker, deeper fiendish tone from before. It’s not both voices anymore, just one. And they seem to want her to leave. 

Blue eyes meet hers as the body contorts, the smoke wrapping around it almost angrily. A struggle is happening. Vex feels so deeply out of her depths. She watches as their eyes flicker between blue with white sclera and fully black, the hissing resounding in Vex’s ears. They look in pain. 

“Please,” they whisper again. When the eyes are blue, they look desperate. 

Something snaps and Vex starts moving. It’s instinctive and she’s through the door before she can really realize what she’s doing.

The hissing gets louder and suddenly, there’s a beast snarling behind her, loud and angry. She jumps through the crumbled part of the wall and starts running down the tunnel. It’s dark and empty and the noises resound around her. They’re everywhere, the fiend is everywhere. 

She turns with the tunnel’s path and she can see the outside light. She’s almost out. And once she’s out… Hopefully, it won’t be able to follow her past the tunnel’s exit. Once she’s out in the world, she hopefully will be okay. 

She’s almost halfway there when a loud bang thunders through the tunnel. Her ears ring with the loudness of it. Barely a second later, her shoulder explodes with pain. 

She screams. Tears rise in her eyes from the pain and she stumbles. Somehow, thank the Gods, she doesn’t fall. Her legs push her towards the outside. She can’t look behind herself. She can’t do anything but cry and run. 

Vex bolts out of the tunnel and keeps going until she can’t stop anymore. Her clothing is dark with blood, the pain is horrible and she’s aware the only reason she’s alive right now is that it didn’t hit major blood vessels. Or at least, not too much. 

Fuck. She stops for a second and reaches up. Her hands stumble through the motions of her Cure Wounds spell. She’s vaguely aware that she’s making noise, desperate noises of pain and fear. The magic wraps around her and seeps into the wound, managing to repair some of the damage but it’s not enough. 

She isn’t sure how much more she can heal herself, and all her potions are at the cabin. She’s vulnerable, bleeding, leaving a trail behind herself, and the Parchwood Timberlands are notoriously dangerous. With a shoulder like this, she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to draw her bow correctly. She’s virtually defenseless. 

She needs Vax. She reaches down for her phone. Thankfully, it’s intact and in her pocket. Her fingers manage to find the right places to click to send him her geolocation before she switches to her contact list. She hits ‘call’ and waits, and prays. She prays to anyone that can hear that he has his phone, that he has service, and that he’s still at the cabin and not in town the way he said he would be. 

The call rings in the silence, for so long. Vex is almost certain he’s not going to pick up when he does.

“Vex?” 

“I’m injured,” she blurts out. “Sent you my location. I don’t know where I am or how to get home, and I don’t think I can draw my bow.” Her voice is shaking. 

This isn’t the first time she calls him in despair. Tears sting her eyes again at the thought. Useless. 

“I’m on my way,” he promises. “I’ll take a healing potion.” 

He hangs up then, probably to get everything she needs and get to her faster, but the silence is overwhelming. Vex looks behind herself, searching for a blue coat and dark smoke. 

She desperately throws herself in her awareness. The fiend shows on her radar, but it’s far away. She finds herself relaxing a bit. Pain shoots through her shoulder again. She looks down at the hole in her coat, then at the hole in her body. It’s unlike anything she’s seen before.

What in the Nine Hells did this to her? Not an arrow, unless it was heavily modified. And the loud thundering bang… She can’t identify it. She knows a lot about weapons but that noise, she’d never heard before. 

Another question that lacks answers.

She’s not going to get any answer right now anyway. She’s hopefully far enough away that she won’t end up face to face with the fiend and whatever caused that wound for now. She sighs heavily. With all of this, she hasn’t hunted. Fuck. She’s useless. She can only sit there and mope at her own stupidity.

Snow starts falling again as she waits, covering her clothes and her hair with little flakes of pure white that eventually melt from her body heat. She should be aware of the beauty of it, but right now, she’s not able to enjoy this. She’s hurt and tired and her mind won’t stop yelling at her. Vax is taking so much time.

She should check where she is. She doesn’t. Vax will find her eventually, he’s not that terrible in nature. She needs to stop giving him so little credit. He’s saved her enough times to prove his skills. 

Everything is silent as the snow falls on her, and she sits there, quiet. She’s breathing. She’s okay. She didn’t die. That’s already something, right? She wishes she could stop her mind from working right now. It won’t shut up. 

She doesn’t know how long she waits. She refuses to check her phone if it isn’t ringing. It’s not. She only has Vax after all, who else would make it ring? She just… sits there and waits, cold and tired and quiet.

The crunching of feet on snow makes her snap her head to see what’s coming. It’s Vax, all dressed in his black clothing, like a large ink stain on the white of the snow, purposefully not stealthy. Probably so she won’t shoot him. Smart. 

Vex should be happier to see him. She’s not. It’s a bitter relief.

His eyes stop on the red stain of blood around her shoulder and barely move from that. 

“I’ve given myself a Cure Wounds,” she calls out. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” 

Vax nods quietly and hands her the red healing potion. She uncorks it and swallows. It’s sour and sweet at once, warming her from the inside out, despite not being heated. She feels the warmth seep into her bones and gather around her shoulder, where the wound is. 

The pain disappears. She doesn’t look to see if it’s completely healed yet. She doesn’t want to take off too many layers while in the snow. 

“What happened?” Vax asks after a second, when she puts the empty glass vial in her pocket and stands up, probably looking much better than when he found her.

Vex sighs and picks up her bow. “I went after a fiend.”

Vax blinks at her, then rolls his eyes. “You, alone, against a fiend? Vex….”

“It was a mistake, I  _ get _ it,” Vex snaps and starts walking. “I’m lucky I made it out alive. That’s what you wanna hear?” She hisses.

There’s a bit of bewildered silence. “Are you okay?” 

“I think the potion healed the last of the damage,” Vex replies. She knows that’s not what he meant, but she doesn’t want to talk about her stupid feelings. Especially not right now, when he seems so fine about it all. 

Vex keeps going forward, until she realizes she can’t hear his crunchy footsteps anymore. She turns around. He’s standing a hundred feet back, arms crossed. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” She shouts. 

Vax sighs heavily. “You’re going the wrong way, stubby,” he huffs. 

Embarrassment burns hot on Vex’s cheeks. Useless, she can’t stop being useless. She starts moving back towards him. 

“Tell me about the fiend,” Vax says once she reaches him. “I thought you’d dealt with one already a few days ago.” 

Vex exhales. “I did. A Barbed Devil that had seemingly killed the ranger before me, Regae. I wasn’t alone. I found two others to help me, out-of-towners.” She explains. “I thought we were done.” 

She tells him the rest of the story, at least the big lines. She doesn’t tell him she was screaming in the snow, or that she was searching for Saundor when she felt the fiend. She does tell him about Keyleth, about the path, about the fiend. The fiend that might actually be a person.

He’s silent while she talks, and she’s just done with the story of the wound and how she can’t tell what did it when they make it home. 

Vax helps her out of her heavy coat and out of her blood-drenched shirt and undershirt. He draws her a bath and takes care of the stains on her clothing. Vex curls up on herself in the hot water. He takes care of her and her things efficiently and Vex wants to cry again. She should be able to do this by herself. 

“Your things are gonna dry out,” Vax says, peeking out of the door of the bathroom. “I’m going out to hunt for that meat. I’m taking the crossbow that’s under the bed.” 

“Be careful!” She calls after him. 

He mumbles something she can’t really make out and starts walking away. The door slams and his footsteps disappear and then there’s only silence. Vex exhales. There’s a new fiend. It’s much stronger than the Barbed Devil. She’s going to need Pike and Grog on her side again. Maybe even more people. She’ll need to go back to the temples and ask for more. Fuck. She isn’t looking forward to that.

She closes her eyes. What was that thing? All that black smoke looked magical, but the body… the body was humanoid. The pale face, with those sharp features. They looked young, and humanoid. Blue eyes… Flickering between blue and black. And the two voices. The normal one, and the fiendish one. 

Fuck. There’s a De Rolo in Castle Whitestone, and they might be possessed. They have a weapon that makes holes in people’s bodies, holes unlike anything she’s ever seen, unlike arrows from bows or bolts from crossbows.

_ The crossbow that’s under the bed.  _

There might be a crossbow under the bed. But there’s also Fenthras. And Vax might have seen it. 

Panic overtakes Vex and she bolts out of the bath, opens the door and throws herself to the bed to pull the case out. She’s dripping water everywhere, and she’s thankful for the fire, because else she’d be freezing but that’s not what matters now. The case is there, a little dusty, except for the places where her fingers have undone the latches. She repeats her usual motions and opens the case.

It’s there. It’s there, in all of its glory. Vex feels like she’s breathing again. 

Since the first day she saw it, in Saundor’s hands, she’s been in awe of it. Still now, it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Verdant green, dark brown leather, golden bronze inlay. The craftsmanship is breathtaking. It seems to breathe and shift on its own, alive with its own strange consciousness. Vex wonders if it knows it isn’t Saundor’s anymore. 

She closes the case back and puts it under the bed again. She dries herself off and puts on some clothes. She doesn’t bother with stays right now, Just a shirt and some pants. She’s not going back outside. 

Trinket comes out of a hiding spot he’s found under one of the chairs to climb on her lap and snuggle into her. Maybe she’s calming down a little now. She yawns.

When Vax comes back, he finds her buried under blankets, curled up on the bed, fast asleep. Trinket naps against her and she seems deep enough in her rest that he doesn’t disturb her to ask questions about why Saundor’s bow is under her bed. That’s for another day. A day where they both feel less like they’re teetering on the edge of a cliff. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rolls for this chapter:
> 
> Vex: Religion Check : 7  
> Percy: Cast Friends: Intimidation Check with Advantage: 13  
> Vex: Deception Check 13 vs Percy’s Passive Insight (12), Success  
> Percy: Insight check, 16  
> Vex: Insight check, 23  
> Percy: WIS Save: 21  
> Percy: CHA Save, 10  
> Vex: Acrobatics Check, 22  
> Orthax: Pepperbox attack, 26 to hit (Vex’s AC is 15). 13 damage  
> Vex: DEX save: 23  
> Vex: Cure Wounds Level 1, 6 healing  
> Common Potion of Healing, 10 healing


End file.
